
Qass 



Book 




f5 



fl^ 



^a 



03 O 



'tl 


§1 










t> 


7S 


p 




^ 


is 




'"' & 


o 


^-''Sj 




o a, 


s 


;s ti 




OJ O) 


o 


o^ 


H 


^.2 






H 


O 3 


» 


cj » 


-< 


P--S 


rj} 


=D ^ 






^ 


-S ® 


O 


•Sb 


H 


OS a 


J 




b 


^3 . 


t- 


^ 0. b 


•< 


■s ^ 


W 


peg 


K 


^o" 


K 


C (^43 


H 


3 = = 

b!l 




^c« 




"SJ^ 




^ o S 




-- ei,S 




III 




oj 33 C 


•^ 


^.2-:. 


C^, 


aj ^^ 


K 

c 


.S d c 


^ 


.2 2-S 


^ 


i-l 






■re 


t^a 


o 


^^ " 



OUTLINES 

OF 

EUROPEAN HISTORY 



BY 



A. J. GRANT, M.A. 

OF king's college, CAMBRIDGE 
PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN LEEDS UNIVERSITY 



\ et I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs " 

Teiinysofi 



WITH ILL USTRA TIONS 



FOURTH EDITION 



LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 

39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON 

NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA 

1912 

A U rights reserved 






MATRI 
AMANTISSIMU3 



By Transfer 
Maritime Comm, 

SEP 3 1940 



PREFACE 

The study of European History as a whole has long been 
known in the schools of the Continent and the IJDited States 
of America ; but it has only lately been introduced into 
England. It must be still considered as in the experimental 
stage so far as methods are concerned, though few will doubt 
that the subject in some form or other must ultimately be 
recognized as forming an important part in any scheme of 
education. It is true of history, though not perhaps of all 
studies, that the whole is greater and better than its parts. 
The greatest prize that awaits the student of history is not a 
knowledge of antiquarian detail, but the wide outlook over all 
the ages, and an understanding of the chief phases through 
which civilization has passed and of the chief influences that 
have moulded it. 

This Pisgah vision comes to most, if it comes at all, after 
long study. Is it possible to attain to it by any more summary 
process ? Can these general views be usefully put before a 
young student ? Is it possible to teach General European 
History as a school or college subject ? The fact that I have 
ventured to write this little book shows that I answer these 
questions in the affirmative. The ordinary text-book of 
English History requires generalizations which are as difficult 
to make as those which are implied in a sketch of European 
History. The charge of superficiality is not necessarily just 
in either case, for, as Archbishop Whately has told us : " It is 
a fallacy to mistake general truths for superficial truths, or 
a knowledge of the leading propositions of a subject for a 



vi Preface 

superficial knowledge." And a more general survey of history 
has this advantage over merely national history, that it implies 
a far truer notion of the nature of European progress by 
eliminating national egotism and showing the interaction of 
state on state, and the mutual obligations of all the national 
groups into which the human family is divided. 

It appears then certain that ever-increasing attention will 
be given not merely to European History, but also to the 
vaster subject of World History, of which European History 
is only a part. It must come to be recognized as a necessary 
part of the equipment of every thinking man that he should 
know the chief features of the human record, and should 
realize that history is " one and indivisible." Lord Acton, in 
his report to the Syndics of the University Press concerning 
the project of the Cambridge Modern History, wrote : "By 
Universal History I understand that which is distinct from 
the combined history of all countries, which is not a rope 
of sand, but a continuous development, and is not a burden on 
the memory, but an illumination of the soul." This high ideal, 
thus eloquently expressed, is one that all who teach the subject 
may well have before their eyes as one to be aimed at, if never 
attained. It will be approximated to the more closely as the 
teacher more clearly feels that there is a meaning in history, 
that the story of the centuries is not merely " full of sound and 
fury signifying nothing," but shows civilization making for a 
goal that grows clearer as the ages pass. 

This sketch is confined to European History, and from the 
end of the classical period deals chiefly with the history of 
Western Europe. British history finds no place in it except 
by way of illustration and allusion. It was thought that those 
into whose hands this book was likely to come would be certain 
to possess an English History, and would probably have 
devoted special study to it. I have tried to burden my pages 
with as few dates and facts as possible, and am inclined to 
regret that I have not excluded more. The scale of the book 
makes the introduction of picturesque and symbolic incident 



Preface vii 

impossible, and ifc seemed best to concentrate attention on the 
main features and movements, which would be obscared by 
details. I have added occasional short bibliographical notes 
with a view to giving the teacher or the student reference to 
easily obtainable books. 

My thanks are due to Professor Ramsay Muir, of Liverpool 
University, and to Mr. H. W. Y. Temperley, of Peterhouse, 
Cambridge, for looking at the proofs for me ; and I am sorry 
that the printing of the book was too far advanced to allow 
me to incorporate all their suggestions in my pages. The 
index has been compiled for me by Miss Byron, of York, 
and to her, too, I am indebted for the detection of certain 
errors. I should like, also, to express my indebtedness to Mr. 
J. W. Allen, of the firm of Messrs. Longmans, Green, and Co., 
for the great help he has given in the production of the 
maps, and the selection of the illustrations. 

A. J. G. 

Leeds. 



PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION 

The third edition is with few exceptions a reprint of the 
second, and in no case has the pagination been altered. A 
few new ihustrations have been substituted where the old ones 
seemed unauthentic or unilluminating, two maps have been 
redrawn, and a few misprints and mistakes have been corrected. 
I have been indebted to my colleague, Miss Cooke, and to 
Professor Hearnshaw of Southampton for certain suggestions 
which I have embodied as far as possible. 

Some friendly critics have urged that I should have 
included at least a short survey of Oriental civilization and 
its relation to the beginnings of European culture. To these 
I can only say that Oriental history does not seem to me to 
have reached as 'yet a sufficiently definite form to allow of 
such summary generalization. Certainly I dare not attempt it. 
Others have urged that it is a mistake to regard the beginning 
of the fourteenth century as the end of the middle ages. I 
have given on p. 209 -my reasons for the course I have adopted, 
and I may say further that the Eeformation and the Renais- 
sance are both seen under a clearer and a truer light when they 
are regarded as the culmination of a slow development, not as 
revolutionary changes. But I quite admit that the fourteenth 
and fifteenth centuries have an intermediate character, and 
that the dissolution of the medieval world may as clearly be 
observed in them as the emergence of the features of modern 
society. 

Leeds, 1909. 



CONTENTS 

PART I 
THE CLASSICAL WORLD 

CHAPTER ^ PAGZ 

I. Introduction 1 

II. Early Greece 3 

TIT. The Zenith of the Greatness of Greece ... 10 

IV. The Disintegration of Greece 23 

V. Macedon and Greece 29 

VI. The Eise of Eomb 40 

VII. Patricians and Plebeians at Rome 44 

VIII. The Eoman Conquest of Italy 47 

IX. EoME and Carthage 51 

X. The Eoman Conquest of the Mediterranean Lands 57 

XI. The Eoman Eeyolution 63 

XII. The Expansion of the Empire by Marius, Sulla, 

AND Julius Caesar • . 66 

XIII. The Completion of the Eoman Eeyolution . . . 71 

XIV. The Establishment of the Eoman Empire ... 78 
XV. The Early Eoman Emperors 85 

XVI. The Age of the Antonines 91 

XVII. The Great Decline in the Empire 98 

XVIII. Barbarian Invasion and the Eeconstruction of the 

Empire 105 



Contents 

PART II 
THE MIDDLE AGES 



CHAPTER 



PAGE 



I. The Teiumph of Chkistianity in the Roman Empire 115 

II. Alaric and the Gothic Victories 119 

III. Progress of Barbarian Conquest in the West . . 124 

IV. The Great Forces op the Early Middle Ages . 134 
V. The Eise of the Medieval Empire 141 

VI. The Disruption of the Carolingian Empire . . . 153 

VII. The Foundation of the Holy Eoman Empire . . 159 
VIII. The Empire and the Papacy to the Eve op the 

Great Struggle between them 1G3 

IX. The First Phase ' in the Struggle between the 

Empire and the Papacy 167 

X. The Second Phase in the Struggle between the 

Empire and the Papacy 172 

XI. The Third Phase in the Struggle between the 

Empire and the Papacy 180 

XII. The Rise op the French Monarchy 186 

XIII. The Crusades 194 

XIV. The Development op the Church during the 

Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries .... 201 

XV. The Catastrophe op the Medieval Church . . , 204 



PART III 
THE MODERN WORLD 

I. France and the Hundred Years' War .... 211 

II. The History of the Church during the Four- 
teenth AND Fifteenth Centuries 2:22 



Contents xi 

CIIArTER PAGH 

III. The Political Condition of Germany, Spain, and 

Italy in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Cen- 
turies . . 227 

IV. The IIenaissanob in Italy 234 

V. France and the Italian Wars 239 

VI. The Keformation in Germany. 248 

Vll. Religious Movements in Europe in the Latter 

Half of the Sixteenth Century 254 

VIII. The Rise of the United Netherlands .... 261 

IX. France during the Era of the Reformation . . 267 

X. The Thirty Years' War in Germany 275 

XI. The Growth of the French Monarchy .... 283 

XII. The Ascendency of France under Louis XIV. . . 291 

XIII. Russia and Prussia.— The Rise of New Powers in 

THE Eighteenth Century 300 

XIV. The coming op the French Revolution .... 309 
XV. The French Revolution 316 

XVI. The Napoleonic Era ........... 325 

XVII. Reaction and Revolution 338 

XVIII. The Unification of Italy and Germany .... 348 

XIX. The Last Generation of European History . . . 355 

Index . . . . > . . . S63 



PAGE 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

The Battle of Sant' Egidio, July 7, 1416 .... Frontisjpiece 

Homer ^ 

Bust of Olympian Zeus 6 

Poseidon, Apollo, and Demeter . 7 

Restoration of the Temple and Precinct of Delphi .....' 9 

A Greek Soldier H 

A Persian " Immortal " 11 

A Persian King 12 

The Acropolis of Athens 17 

Pericles 19 

Ruins of the Parthenon 20 

Procession of Chariots 21 

Head of the Hermes by Praxiteles 21 

Train of Musicians and Youths 22 

Socrates 22 

The Temple of Theseus at Athens 24 

A Coin of Philip of Macedon . 30 

Demosthenes 31 

The Lion of Chaeroneia 32 

The Battle of Issus between Darius and Alexander .... 36 

Roman Legionary Soldiers with Pilum, Short Sword, and Shield 49 

Reconstruction of a Roman Boarding-bridge in the First Punic War 53 

Bust of Scipio Africanus Major (the conqueror of Hannibal) . . 62 



xiv List of Illustrations 

FAGS 

Julius Caesar 70 

A Coin of Mithridates , 73 

Bust of Gaius Octavius, afterwards Augustus 79 

The Forum, Eome 80 

Statue of Augustus in the Vatican 81 

Tiberius 87 

Nero 88 

Vespasian 89 

The Arch of Titus, Rome 92 

Antoninus Pius 94 

Trajan , 95 

Hadrian 96 

Marcus Aurelius 97 

Septimius Severus " 101 

Caracalla 102 

Mithras Group 10-4 

The Arch of Constantino, Rome Ill 

The Tomb of Theodoric at Ravenna 130 

The Kaaba at Mecca 137 

Charles the Great 147 

The Minster at Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen) ■ . 152 

Remains of a Viking Ship, from a Cairn at Gokstad .... 155 

The Penitence of Canossa . ' 1C9 

Frederick Barbarossa's Castle at Ivaiserworth on the Rhine , . 173 

The Ground Plan of the Abbey de Citcaux 17G 

Part of the Front of St. Mark's, Venice 179 

A View of Paris in the Thirteenth Century 190 

The Parlement at Paris — showing the Holding of a Bed of 

Justice 192 

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem 196 



List of Illustrations xv 

PAGE 

A Crusader 197 

Charles the Bold of Burgundy 221 

Warship of the Hanseatic League in the Fourteenth Century . . 229 

A Scene in Venice , . 232 

Dante . . 236 

Charles V 244 

The Capture of Francis I. at the Battle of Pavia 245 

]\Jartin Luther 249 

John Calvin 255 

Erasmus 257 

WiUiam the Silent 2G4 

Queen Elizabeth 266 

Gustavus Adolphus 2S0 

Cardinal Richelieu 287 

Louis XIV. . 288 

The Palace of Versailles 292 

The Duke pf Marlborough 299 

Peter the Great 302 

Head of Voltaire (by Houdon) iu the Louvre, Paris 313 

The Bastille 319 

Kobespierre 323 

Napoleon Bonaparte 326 

Lord Nelson 332 

H.M.S. Victory 333 

The Kremlin, Moscow 336 

Prince Metternich 341 

Napoleon III 347 



LIST OF MAPS AND PLANS 

PAGE 

Greece in the Fiftli Century b.c 15 

Greece and Macedonia 30 

The Empire of Alexander 34 

The East after the Death of Alexander the Great 38 

Italy before the Eise of the Roman Power 42 

The Roman Empire 84 

North-Western Europe about 450 a.d 125 

The Empire of Charles the Great 149 

Europe in the Twelfth Century 174 

France in the Tenth Century 187 

The Advance of Mahomedanism 195 

France during the Hundred Years' War, showing the English and 

Burgundian Territories about 1420 ........ 213 

Europe in the Seventeenth Century 285 

The Rise of Prussia 305 

The Zenith of Napoleon's Power 329 

The Settlement of 1814-1815 339 



OUTLINES OF EUROPEAN 
HISTORY 

PART I 

THE CLASSICAL WORLD 

CHAPTER I 

Introduction 

We have no means of determining how long a life that may- 
be called civilized has been in existence on the continent of 
Europe. But authentic history, resting on contemporary 
record of some sort, whether on stone or parchment, takes 
us back for close upon three thousand years. The purpose 
of this book is to trace in briefest outline the chief changes 
which the life of man in Europe has undergone during that 
period. 

It is clearly impossible (and if possible it would be useless) 
to give any catalogue of the statesmen, soldiers, poets, artists, 
and men of science who have existed during so Divisions 
great a space of time. We must fix our attention of history, 
upon society rather than on individuals, and ask ourselves 
what have been the great changes which, as thirty centuries 
have come and gone, have passed over the government and the 
social Hfe, over the thoughts and behefs of men. For this 
threefold division of history will, if firmly grasped, make the 
subject clearer and easier. We must try in each of the epochs 
through which we pass to realize : firstly^ in what way men 
have managed their loolitical affairs, how they have been 

B 



2 Outlines of European History 

govprned, how their rulers have been appointed, how their 
laws have been made ; secondly, what their social condition has 
been, what the ordinary hfe of men has been, how and by 
whom labour has been performed, what has been the position 
and influence of women ; and thirdly, what their religious 
condition has been, what ideas men have formed to themselves 
of the origin and constitution of the universe, what their faiths 
have been, what have been their forms of worship. This 
triple thread will guide us through all the intricacies of the 
long story, and serve to make us feel that European history is 
one and continuous. 

What do we mean by the unity and continuity of history ? 
We mean that all the generations of men, and all the cen- 
The con- turies that succeed one another, are closely Hnked 
tinuity of together ; that there is no gap anywhere ; and that 
history. ^^^ history of no one period can be properly under- 
stood unless we know something of all that have preceded it. 
The roots of the present are deeply embedded in the past, 
even in the remote past. Our language, our institutions, our 
social life, our science, our religion are the result of a long 
process of development, not only during these known three 
thousand years, but also during earUer years uncounted and 
unknown. The real gain of the study of general history is 
that it allows us to realize our relation to the past, and to feel 
our indebtedness to the unnumbered. generations of men to 
whose efforts we owe the civihzation that we enjoy. 



Early Greece 



CHAPTER II 
Early Greece 

Homer 950 B.C. (?) 

Olympian Festival ........ 776 B.C. 

Solon 594 B.C. 

Pisistratus 560-510 B.C. 

Ouu knowledge of European history begins with one small 

part of the continent, and it is from that land that many of 

the chief features of European civilization are de- r- 

irrn.iT-/^ ii<. 1 Cjreece — the 

rive J. Inat land is Greece — a land of " the moun- beg-inning- of 

tains and the seas " ; where the mountains, rising European 
in several places to a height of over eight thousand ^^^^'T'"- 
feet, and in innumerable instances over four thousand feet, 
divide the country into 
valleys, which, before roads 
were built, communicated 
with one another with 
difficulty ; while the sea 
penetrating into the land 
in many gulfs or fiords, 
and dotted with countless 
islands, offered to the in- 
habitants an easier and a 
safer mode of travel than 
the paths across the moun- 
tain ranges. 

Our first knowledge of 
this land is derived from 

the immortal 

Homer, 
poems of 

Homer. It is not possible ^^^Eomer 

to fix his date, but we may ,„ .. „ . . ,^ ^ -,7 ,r r> ^ 

. ' •' (^From the Bust in the Capitol Museum, Rome.) 

take it that the condi- , . . . .• ^ ,r, . k,-„^ 

An imaginary representation of the great blind 
tlOnS of society which he poet, of whose Ufe nothing is really known. 
-1 ., • , -t • ,1 ■ • Even his blindness is an improbable conjecture. 

depicts existed in their mam 

features from 1000 to 800 B.C. The purpose of his poems 




4 Outlines of European History 

is to tell as of the long war which was waged between 
the Greeks and Trojans for Helen, the wife of the Greek 
prince, Menelaus, who had been stolen from her home by 
Paris, Prince of Troy, and of the wanderings of the hero 
Ulysses on his return from the war. The incidents described 
in these poems are doubtless imaginary ; bub we can gather 
from them what manner of people the Greeks were in that 
early time, and how they lived. We find them governed 
by kings, who are assisted in council by an assembly of 
their nobles, and who have to submit their decisions on 
the most important topics to an assembly of the wbole 
people : and all the governments that later on existed in 
Greece were developed from this primitive constitution of 
king, aristocratic council, and popular assembly. We find the 
women honoured by the men, but possessed of no independence, 
and in a legal sense slaves. We find that there are large 
numbers of slaves, to whose lot falls the hardest work. We see 
the Greeks worshipping gods, who are personifications of the 
forces of nature, with passions and desires like those of men, 
but with beauty, knowledge, and power more than mortal. 
The Homeric world is one that already knows freedom, 
thought, and beauty. This, the earliest vision that we get of 
European life, is eminently attractive ; but it is often difficult 
to distinguish the colours of reality from those of romance. 
And after the Homeric period there came a period of almost 
complete darkness. 

We do not see Greece again with any clear vision much 
before 600 B.C., and when we do the features are very much 
altered. Towns that were powerful in the Homeric period are 
now sunk almost to villages. New races have invaded the 
country, and the colours of romance have nearly faded away. 

Let us try to seize the chief features of Greek life as they 

are revealed to us by authentic history. We note first that there 

Chief is no pohtical unity in the country. Greece was 

features of not one state, but w^as a collection of many states, 

early Greek r^^^j ^]^q name of Greece (or Hellas) was sfiven not 
life / o 

only to the land which we call Greece, but also 

to large parts of Italy, and Sicily, and of Asia Minor ; for 

everywhere where Greeks settled became in their minds a 



Early Greece 5 

part of Greece. And wherever the Greeks settled each city, 
of whatever size, was a separate state, with a government of 
ics own, an army of its own, usually with a coinage of its own. 
This is the feature in Greek life which it is hardest for us in the 
twentieth century after Christ to realize. Certain large cities, 
snch as Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Thebes, stand out from the 
others ; but every city either was or wished to be independent, 
and the Greeks thought that the wish was natural and right. 

There was no uniformity of government among this vast 
number of city-states. The original " Homeric " constitution 
had everywhere disappeared. Sparta was almost constitutions 
alone in maintaining a monarchy, and there two of early 
kings always ruled ; in nearly all other states the Greece, 
monarchy had disappeared. In some the real power was in 
the hands of a few, and such governments were called oligar- 
chies or aristocracies ; in some the people themselves were all- 
powerful, and these were called democracies ; in nearly all the 
general assembly of the people was called together at intervals, 
where the citizens (in person, not through their representatives) 
voted upon great questions of policy, and elected officials. 
The absence of any idea of representation must always be 
borne in mind if we would understand the early Greek states. 

The social character of Greece was still much what it was 
in the Homeric period. The position of women was still a 
dependent one 5 perhaps even more dependent Greek 
than in the days of Homer. Society rested as slavery, 
before on a basis of slavery, and in the most advanced com- 
mercial city-states, such as Athens and Corinth, the slaves 
outnumbered the free inhabitants. But of all slaveries that 
the world has known, that of Greece is the least repulsive. 
There were places and occasions where the slaves w^ere treated 
with cruelty, but as a rule they lived in domestic relations 
with their masters, and their position was felt to be one of 
degradation, rather than of actual physical hardship. 

Homer's gods were also the gods of historic Greece. Zeus, 
the god of the height of heaven ; Apollo, the sun-god ; Poseidon, 
the god of the sea ; Hera and Athene, the wife The g:ods 
and the daughter of Zeus ; these are the chief of Greece, 
deities to whom temples were erected. But during the 



Outlines of European History 




progress of Greek civilization we see a change in the character 
of the gods, though not in their names. What was ugly, 

coarse, or cruel, in the 
" l^?^fev. stories about them, was 

purged away or dropped 
out of sight. Men came 
to think of Zeus as being 
so supreme over all the 
others, that the greatest 
thinkers of Greece seem to 
believe, not in many gods, 
but in one. But for the 
average Greek to the end, 
the land was full of deities 
and supernatural beings, 
great and small ; deities 
whose existence appealed 
to his imagination and 
clothed the earth in wonder, 
while their human character 
and limited power did not 
crush his mind, or forbid his intellect to work freely. 

The religion of Greece never produced an organized priest- 
hood, nor a definite faith. It was, as a rule, local and spon- 
The reiig-ious taneous in its character. But it possessed certain 
institutions features which belonged equally to all the widely 
of Greece. scattered and often warring states. Chief among 
these were the Olympian games, and the Delphic oracle. The 
Greeks generally loved athletic games, and thought it a part 
of religion to develop the body as well as the mind and soul of 
man. There were many athletic festivals, but the greatest of 
all was held every fourth year at Olympia, by the banks of the 
Alpheus in the Peloponnese. There athletes from all the states 
of Greece contended eagerly in running and leaping, in boxing 
and wrestling, in throwing the quoits, and in chariot racing. 
Apart from the physical effects of such a festival, it served as 
a valuable sign of the unity of Greece, Avhich existed in spite 
of all its political divisions. All Greeks could contend at 
Olympia, and none but Greeks could do so. The festival was 



Bust of Olympian Zeus. 

This bust reproduces the general character of 
the famous statue of Zeus, by Phidias, which 
was placed at Olympia. 



Early Greece 7 

called Pan-Hellenic, as being common to all the Greeks (or 
Hellenes). 

Oracles, where the gods might be consulted as to the 
present or the future, were to be found in many parts of 
Greece ; but Apollo's oracle at Delphi outrivalled all others. 
There, raised high above the plain on the spurs of Mount 
Parnassus, was the great temple of Apollo, the most important 
of all Greece. And to it all Greeks had resort to procure the 
god's sanction for their actions, or to ask him to reveal the 
future. It is easy to laugh at many of the answers tbafc were 




Poseidon, Apollo, and Demeter. 
{From the Eastern Frieze of the Parthenon, Athens.) 

given; but it cannot be doubted that the influence of the 
oracle was for good, that it upheld a high standard of conduct, 
and acted as a connecting bond to the scattered units of Greek 
people. 

The chief states of Greece were Sparta and Argos, in the 
Peloponnese ; Corinth, upon the isthmus ; and Athens and 
Thebes, in the central portion of Greece. Of the states in 
the Peloponnese, Sparta was the most important. It was 



8 Outlines of European History 

essentially a military state, where the citizens (the Spartans 
proper) were surrounded by so great a number of the subject 
population, both free and servile, that only con- 
^^ ^' stant and rigid mihtary training allowed them to 
retain their mastery. So, from birth to death, the life of the 
Spartans was regulated with a view to the exigencies of war. 
Family life only existed in strict subordination to war. And 
Sparta was successful. She was by far the greatest military 
power in Greece. Spartan soldiers (and they alone among 
the Greeks) possessed discipline and steadiness ; and for at 
least two centuries their military supremacy was almost un- 
challenged. But she paid a heavy price for her success. 
Art and literature and thought never found a home in Sparta. 
She contributed little to civilization, to which Greece, on the 
whole, contributed so much. 

The opposite tendencies in Greek life are represented by 
Athens. The city stood four and a half miles from the sea ; 
the houses were placed at first on the great rock 
fortress of the Acropolis, and when the population 
grew larger they clustered round its base. Here Greek civiliza- 
tion bore its fairest flower ; here, chiefly, was developed that 
store of truth and beauty which has ever since been one of 
the priceless possessions of humanity. 

Athens had at first been governed by a king ; but in Athens, 
as elsewhere, the monarchy had given place, first to an aristo- 
cracy, and then the aristocracy was in its turn threatened by 
the rising power of the people. At the beginning of the sixth 
century, Solon had rearranged the constitution ; without wholly 
destroying the power of the nobles, he had given a large share 
of authority to the people, and he hoped that this compromise 
would satisfy the demands of both parties. But his wise and 
noble scheme, which laid, as it turned out, the foundation of 
the Athenian state, was soon overthrown for a time. There 
was a section of the people that was not satisfied. The poorest 
found a champion in the Athenian noble, Pisistratus ; and 
this man, supported by the popular forces, overthrew the con- 
stitution of Solon, and made himself master of the state. He 
became what the Greeks called a " tyrant ; " that is, an uncon- 
stitutional ruler. The rule of Pisistratus was, on the whole, 



Early Greece 




lo Outlines of European History 

good. He beautified Athens, he brought artists to the city, 
he gained foreign possessions ; but he took away their liberty, 
and the Athenians rose against his son and successor, Hippias, 
and drove him from Athens. 

For Greek history generally consult the great works of Grote, 
Curtius, Thirlwall. Holm's History of Greece (translated) summarizes 
recent discussions and discoveries. Smaller books are Mahaffy's Social 
Life in Greece ; Oman's History of Greece ; Grant's Greece in the Age of 
Pericles ; Dickinson's Greek View of Life. 

For illustration of Greek history it is best to turn to the great 
Greek authors in translation : Bawlinson's Herodotus, Jowett's Thu- 
cydides, Dakyns' Xenophon. Plutarch's Parallel Lives of the Greeks 
and Romans is invaluable to the teacher throughout the whole of the 
classical period. Valuable illustrations can also be got from the poets — 
Homer, Aeschylus, Pindar, Sophocles, Euripides. Note especially 
Aeschylus' Persians for the great Persian war. 

Schreiher's Atlas of Classical Antiquities is excellent. Murray's 
Handy Classical Maps are specially valuable because they mark clearly 
the contours of the land, without which neither Greek nor Boman 
history can be properly understood. 



CHAPTER III 
The Zenith of the Greatness of Greece. 

Battle of Marathon 490 B.C. 

Battle of Salamis 480 B.C. 

End of Persian Wars 445 B.C. 

Death of Pericles 429 B.C. 

Here came the greatest crisis in Greek history — some have 
called it the greatest crisis in European civilization ; for at 
The Persian the end of the sixth century B.C. Greece found 
wars. her very existence threatened by the Oriental and 

despotic power of Persia. 

The Persians were not a wholly barbarous or contemptible 
people. The Greeks themselves admitted their courage and 
their truthfulness. But in the struggle which now began, 
European civihzation was threatened with extirpation. For 



The Zenith of the Greatness of Greece 1 1 




A Greek Soldier. 

(^From Perry^s " Ch-eek and Roman 
Sculpture.") 

This shows the Bpear on which the Greek 
soldier mainly relied, and the body 
armour ; but does not show the shield 
which every Greek soldier carried. 




A Persian "Immortal." 

{From Zimmern's " History of Greece") 

The Persian army carried every variety 
of weapon. The Immortals were the 
picked trooj s, and had the best w eapons. 



12 



Outlines of European History 



European civilization was then to be found in Greece — and 
Greece only. On the one side was political freedom, and 
on the other despotism ; on the one side monogamy, and on 
the other polygamy. In Greece the seeds of art, literature, 
science, and philosophy were sown, and were already giving 
promise of a great harvest, while Persia was, in all the 

things of the intellect, 
unprogressive and life- 
less. Had Persia 
triumphed, European 
civilization would have 
been destroyed in its 
cradle. 

But Persia did nob 
triumph. The Greek 
The defeat cities of 
of Persia. Asia Minor 
were overrun by Cyrus 
and Darius, and the 
victorious march of the 
Persian arms advanced 
over Thrace and Mace- 
donia to the very con- 
fines of Greece. But 
when, in 490, Darius 
sent a Persian force 
to land on the shores 
of Attica, it was driven 
off in the battle of 
Marathon by an Athe- 
nian army of greatly 
inferior numbers. And 
when, ten years later 
(in 480), Xerxes, the 
successor of Darius, led the Persian hordes against Greece, 
he found the greater number of the Greek states banded 
together to resist him. Some, indeed (such as Thebes and 
Argos), allowed their jealousies and selfish aims to withdraw 
them from the national cause ; but most ranged themselves 




A Persian King. 

(From the " Darius Vase " at Naples. From 
Youvghusband's " Retreat of the Ten Thousand.") 



The Zenith of the Greatness of Greece 13 

under the leadership of Sparta, Athens being foremost in 
this patriotic subordination. From Athens, too, came the most 
capable of the leaders of the Greeks, Themistocles. It was 
largely due to his counsels and energy that Greece survived 
the ordeal. At first, all went well with Xerxes. He forced his 
way through the pass of Thermopylae, the main gate to Greece. 
But then his navy was defeated by the Greek navy (to which 
Athens contributed the majority of the ships) in the battle of 
Salamis (480). Xerxes thereupon, in fear for his person, retired 
from the contest ; but the next year his general, Mardonius, was 
crushed by a combined army of Greeks, under the command 
of Pausanias, in the battle of Plataea. Salamis and Plataea 
together were decisive. Greek civilization was saved ; and 
with it European civilization. 

It was an amazing victory, for the contending forces were 
very unequal, even if Greece had been united, and, as we have 
seen, Greece was divided against herself. Yet the causes of 
the victory are easily discoverable. It was a victory of a 
higher over a lower stage of intellectual development. In 
weapons, in tactics, in ships, the Greeks were far superior to 
their foes. It was also a victory of liberty over despotism. 
The Persian soldiers had no interest in the struggle to which 
their master was driving them, while to the Greeks generally, 
and to the Athenians and Spartans especially, it was a war in 
defence of all that they most prized. The physical features 
of the country too had helped the cause of freedom. The 
mountains, the straits, and the island-studded sea made Greece 
easily defensible. But the Greeks themselves admitted that it 
would have gone hard with them if the Persians had been led 
by an abler or a more resolute commander. Good fortune, 
patriotism, and intelligence had all played their part in 
bringing the Greeks safely through this, the one great heroic 
period in their military annals. 

Freed from this great danger, Greece was able to develop 
herself in every direction. One result of the great war which 
the country had passed through was to produce a Greece after 
desire to weld the many separate states into which the Persian 
Greece was divided into some stable union. At ^^^^• 
first, after the battle of Plataea, it was proposed to form a 



14 Outlines of European History 

general league of all patriotic Greek states, for the further pro- 
secution of the war against Persia. The league was formed 
under the presidency of Sparta, and heavy blows were struck 
against the Persian power in Asia Minor and upon the northern 
coast of the Aegean Sea. Bat internal dissensions soon broke 
the league in two. The Spartans were not fitted for the task 
of directing the forces of united Greece ; they were powerful 
only on land, and the chief operations were henceforth across 
the waters of the Aegean Sea. They were conservative in temper, 
and fearful of responsibility, and the conduct of the new league 
required energy and initiative. Moreover, their chief, Pausanias, 
the victor of Plataea, was suspected of treasonous relations with 
Persia. In three years, therefore, the general Pan-Hellenic 
League broke up, and Greece was divided into two confederacies. 
The states of the mainland followed the lead of Sparta, while 
the island and maritime states invited Athens to be their leader, 
and she readily consented. She was in every way fitted for the 
task. Her power was chiefly on the sea ; her commanders were 
energetic, eager for adventure, and ready for responsibility. 
Her treatment, too, of the alUes was, at first, conciliatory and 
popular. 

We see then, in the year 476, Greece divided into two 
leagues — the Spartan League, of states situated on the main- 
land of Greece ; and the Delian League, presided over by 
Athens^ consisting of maritime states. The two leagues were 
not at first unfriendly to one another, and the Delian League 
vigorously prosecuted the war against Persia. All Greek lands 
were torn from her grasp ; Egypt and Cyprus were attacked by 
the Greeks, and with considerable success. At last, in 445 B.C., 
Persia recognized the impossibility of recovering her supremacy 
in Greek waters, and consented to a peace, which left the 
Delian or Athenian League in complete mastery of the Aegean 
Sea and most of the adjoining lands. 

But meanwhile that league had been undergoiug great 
internal changes. It had been at first a league of equals, 
Formation of Voluntarily supported, to which all members made 
the Athenian Contributions in ships or men or money ; and the 
Empire. advantages gained were as great for the allies as 

for Athens herself. But that early condition did not last. 



The Zenith of the Greatness of Greece 15 




1 6 Outlines of European History 

When the danger from Persia was no longer urgent, many of 
the allies tried to secede. Athens coerced them into obedience, 
and thus the whole character of the league altered. "What 
had been at first a free association under the presidency of 
Athens for the good of all, became in the course of thirty 
years the Athenian Empire, in which the maritime states of 
Greece, though still called allies, were really subjects paying 
tribute to an imperial mistress, who used the money for what 
ends seemed best to herself. 

The city-states of the mainland had seen with jealousy the 
growth of the Athenian Empire, for a disUke for the supre- 
macy of any one state was one of the strongest motives in the 
politics of Greece. Sparta saw with alarm Athens so far out- 
stripping her in influence and in the number of her subjects. 
And thus the unity of Greece, which had been established for 
a moment by the Persian War, soon gave place to a feeling of 
bitter rivalry between the two leagues, which was certain to 
issue in war. And, even more than Sparta, the commercial 
state of Corinth hated Athens, for she was outstripped in the 
race for wealth, in spite of her excellent geographical position, 
and found herself hemmed in upon both the east and the west 
by the possessions or allies of Athens. There broke out in 
consequence a series of wars in Greece between Athens and her 
rivals. The supremacy of Athens on sea was unchallenged ; 
but on land, after some early triumphs, which allowed her to 
annex some adjacent lands, she was defeated and had to 
acquiesce, in 445, in a truce of thirty years, which left her 
without any territory or any important allies on the mainland. 
The rivalry with Sparta still remained, and resulted soon in a 
great war, which sounded the knell of the poUtical life of 
Greece. 

During this time, also, great changes had been passing over 
the internal Ufe of Athens. And, though Athens is only one 
The Athenian o^t of the many states of Greece, her importance is 
democracy, so great that our attention may be almost concen- 
trated upon her. While her relations with her so-called 
" allies " were growing into empire, at home she was developing 
her constitution into the most complete type of democracy that 
Greece ever knew. The Athenian democracy was in many 



The Zenith of the Greatness of Greece 



17 




1 8 Outlines of European History 

respects different from the form of government which we 
mean by the same word. We must always remember that the 
state contained large numbers of slaves, and that the idea of 
representation was quite unknown. The citizens, who alone 
h id the right of voting, were not more than fifteen thousand 
in number, and they formed a minority of the male inhabitants 
of the state. The outstanding feature of the Athenian 
democracy was the great power wielded by the General 
Assembly of the people. They met together in a great open- 
air theatre, called the Pnyx ; the political assembly was called 
the ecclesia ; the people themselves in their political capacity 
was known as the Demos. The Demos meeting in the ecclesia 
was the supreme and unchallenged ruler of the Athenian 
state. It decided on questions of policy ; it directed the opera- 
tions of war ; it maintained a jealous supremacy over all the 
other organs of the Government. The great size of modern 
states and the idea of representative government have made it 
impossible for the mass meetings of the people to assume now 
the importance which they possessed in Athens and in many 
states of the ancient world ; but when first the English came 
to our island the moots, or public meetings, must have been 
something like the Athenian ecclesia. There were two other 
political assemblies, the Areopagus and the Council of Five 
Hundred ; but the. Areopagus was little more than a court of 
justice for cases of murder ; and the Council of Five Hundred, 
though an important body, was the quite dependent instru- 
ment of the General Assembly. There were a great number of 
officials or magistrates in the state, but none of them could act 
in an independent way. They existed to obey the commands, 
and to carry out the policy of the General Assembly. The sub- 
ordination of the council and of the officials was secured by 
the fact that most of the officials and all the members of the 
council were elected, not by the deliberate choice of their 
fellow citizens, but by the casting of lots. They were thus 
deprived of all the prestige that elected representatives could 
claim ; they were not distinguished above their fellows by 
popularity or ability. They could not hope to rule ; it was 
their business to serve. He who would understand the working 
of the Athenian democracy must understand the use of the lot. 



The Zenith of the Greartness of Greece 



19 



Pericles. 



The desire for equality thus seems to pervade every part of 
the Athenian state. And yet during the time of which we are 
speaking the state was dominated by a great per- 
sonality — the statesman Pericles. He belonged to 
the progressive or democratic party, and had co-operated in 
the movement whereby the last remnants of aristocratic exclu- 
siveness in the state were destroyed. 
For about fifteen years he really 
controlled the destinies of Athens. 
But this was not by virtue of any 
office that he held. For many years 
in succession he was chosen by his 
fellow citizens to be one of the ten 
Generals who directed the general 
policy of the state — this was one of the 
few offices that were filled up by elec- 
tion, not by the casting of lots. But, 
though the office was an important 
one, it was always dependent on the 
approval of the popular assembly. 
The power of Pericles rested on quite 
other foundations ; on his popularity 
with the people and on the persua- 
siveness of his speeches in the General 
Assembly. He controlled Athens 
not because he held an office of 
command, but because the people 
trusted him and followed his advice. 

The democracy of Athens during the " Age of Pericles " 
is an interesting experiment in politics ; but it is not to that 
that the glory of that age is due. For this was The Ag-e of 
the period at which the art and thought of Greece Pericles, 
(using both words in their widest signification) reached their 
most glorious development. And it is in art and thought 
that the real importance, the real supremacy of the Greeks 
is to be found. Many other nations have produced greater 
soldiers ; many have solved the problems of government 
more thoroughly ; but no nation has given so much as Greece 
to the knowledge and the beauty of the world. Pericles 




Pericles. 

{From the Bust in the British 
Museum.') 

rhe helmet which he is wearing 
typifies the office of General 
which he held for so many years. 



20 Outlines of European History 

was himself deeply interested in art and philosophy, nnd under 
his protection Athens became the great glory of Greece. 

First, the city was arrayed in a splendour of architecture 
unknown in Europe until then. Temples of gleaming marble 
Athenian were built upon the acropolis and other buildings 
architecture, ^ere planted at its base. In delicate grace and 
exquisite proportions these buildings are among the greatest of 
all time; but they (and especially the chief of all — the 




Ruins of the Parthenon. 

The Parthenon was built about 440 b.c. In the fourth century it became a Christian 
church and subsequently a Mahomedan mosque. It remained uninjured until 1687, 
when it was wrecked by the explosion of the Turkish powder-magazine, while the 
Venetians were besieging it. 

Parthenon, a temple of Athene) were also decorated by sculp- 
tural work produced by the hand or under the direction of 
Phidias, the greatest of all sculptors. The mutilated fragments 
of his work are now the chief glory of our British Museum. 
The chief of his works in Athens was a statue of Athene, 
wrought in ivory and gold, but all the appropriate spaces in 
the Parthenon were filled with groups or single figures, wrought 
in marble with unsurpassed gi ace and majesty. 



The Zenith of the Greatness of Greece 2 1 

At the south-east of the acropohs was the great theatre of 
Dionysus, in which plays were performed at certain fixed peiiods 
of the year. The greatest dramatists of Athens The Athenian 
(and the world has never known a greater group), theatre, 
all Hved in the " Age of Pericles." Sophocles hved and wrote 




Procession of Chariots. 

This represents a part of the great procession in honour of Athena. The figures 

are partly restored. 

(^Froni the Parthenon Frieze.^ 

during the whole of the age ; Aeschylus belongs to an earlier 
generation, but survived into it ; Euripides did his best work 
later, but was a younger 
contemporary of the others; 
Aristophanes, the greatest 
of ancient comic dramatists, 
began to make a great name 
for himself just after the 
death of Peiicles. The 
Athenian theatre was very 
different from that of our 
own day. There were 
never more than three or 
four actors upon the stage 
at the same time. The 
scenery was formal, con- 
ventional, and perhaps ^ _ ^ ^ ... 
, . ' -D ^ Head of the Hermes by Praxiteles, 
clumsy m appearance. l3Ut • >. 1 „„ 

•^ V i. This statue, which was found at Olympia, belongs 

no stage plays, not even to a period nearly a century later than Phidias 

Shakespeare's, have ever andPericies 

occupied themselves more seriously with the great problems of 

life ; few or none have reached a higher level of poetry and 




22 Outlines of Greek History 

eloquence. Certainly no theatre was ever so important to tlie 




Train of Musicians and Youths. 

Another portion, slightly restored, of the frieze representing the great procession 

in honour of Athena. 

(From the Sculptures of the Parthenon.') 

life of the nation as that of Athens. It played somewhat the 

same part for Athenian 
life that the pulpit and 
the theatre and the Press 
combined play for mo- 
dern English life. 

But architecture, 
sculpture, poetry, and 
Philosophy the drama, 
and literature by no means 
^°^^^^"^- complete 
the sum of the intel- 
lectual activities of 
Greece at this time. 
There is hardly any de- 
partment of human 
thought in which the 
first effort was not made 
by the Greeks about this 
time. What they did in 
art has never been ex- 
celled, while what they 
Socrates, ^[^ j^ science and philo- 

Rophy laid the foundation upon which later thought has reared 




The Disintegration of Greece 23 

its vast fabric. The writing of history beiran with the great 
works of Herodotus and Thucydides, and later ages have not 
surpassed the charm of the first, or the accuracy, fairness, and 
deep insight of the second. Before the death of Pericles, 
Socrates had begun in the market-place of Athens to discuss, 
with any one who would talk with him, on questions of conduct 
which led into the deep problems of moral and metaphysical 
philosophy. " What is justice, courage, holiness ? " he asked 
of the complacent Athenians of his day ; and, as they failed 
to give him any satisfactory answer, he led them on to consider 
the very foundations on which religion and morals rest. He 
formulated no philosophy of his own, but the impulse which he 
gave is the greatest that speculative thought has ever received. 
Plato was his pupil, and from Socrates all the philosophies of 
the ancient world are derived. Socrates protested against the 
importance attached to physical science, from which he thought 
no good results could be derived ; but the Greeks were active 
and productive in science, though in this field Athens was not 
so prominent as in art and philosophy. Mathematics, geometry, 
mechanics, and medicine all received a powerful impulse from 
Greek speculation. 



CHAPTER IV 
The Disintegration of Greece 

Peloponnesian War 431-404 B.C. 

Athenian defeat at Syracuse .... 413 B.C. 

Battle of Leuctra 371 B.C. 

Death of Epaminondas 362 B.C. 

It is impossible to overestimate the debt of civilization to the 
Greeks in art and thought ; but before the Age of Pericles was 
at an end dangers, both political and military, began to gather, 
and neither Athens nor Greece was able to solve the problems 
which they presented. For Greece failed to create any strong 
or stable state ; the relation of her various city-states to one 
another was one of constant war ; ^nd in less than a century 



24 



Outlines of European History 




The Disintegration of Greece 25 

from the death of Pericles (429) she had become the prey of 
a people of far inferior intellectual development, but more 
united and more warlike. 

The first stage in the disintegration of Greece was the long 
war between Athens and Sparta (usually called the Pelopon- 
nesian War), which broke out in 432, and ended ^^^ p^^^ 
in 404 in the utter destruction of the Athenian ponnesian 
Empire. Pericles had seen the war coming, had War. 
believed it to be inevitable, and had hoped that the Athenians 
would be victorious. The struggle was primarily one of 
rivalry for mastery in Greece ; but other motives concealed 
the naked straggle for power. The Greeks were divided into 
two chief races, the Dorians and the lonians ; and Sparta 
represented the Dorians, while Athens was followed by most 
of the Ionian states. The Spartan state was an oligarchy and 
her victory was desired by all oligarchical states and parties ; 
while Athens was a democracy and the defender of the 
democratic principle. The long indecisiveness of the struggle 
was due to the fact that, while the fleet of Athens and her allies 
was at the commencement of the war without a rival, the armies 
of the Spartans and their allies had an equally unquestioned 
ascendency on land. The war proceeded, therefore, for many 
years before either side could deal the other a fatal or even a 
serious blow. It must be noted, too, that in all wars until 
quite recent centuries the expenses of the struggle had to be 
met year by year ; the invention of a " national debt " had not 
yet enabled the combatants to place the burden of the cost 
upon the shoulders of succeeding generations ; and the slow 
movement of ancient wars is due to financial exhaustion, more 
than to any other cause. 

In 421 a peace was made between the combatants, on 
condition that all conquests should be restored. But the 
peace was a hollow one ; the opposition and the The Sicilian 
rivalry which caused the war still continued, expedition, 
and in 415 led to a renewal of the struggle upon an arena 
where at last really decisive results were reached. For the 
great and rich island of Sicily was occupied by Greek city- 
states, who reproduced the features of the mother states of the 
mainland, alike in their forms of government, their devotion to 



2 6 Outlines of European History 

art and thouglit, and their rivalries. The city of Syracuse 
was the greatest of all, and her very greatness raised the 
antagonism of the other city-states of the island. In 415, 
Athens, persuaded largely by Alcibiades, determined to under- 
take the conquest of this island. At first all went well. The 
siege of Syracuse was undertaken and seemed to be approach- 
ing a successful issue, when there came a sudden and tragic 
change. Alcibiades, accused by his enemies of sacrilege, had 
fled to Sparta and urged the Spartans to send help and 
encouragement to Syracuse, pointing out at the same time with 
fatal skill how best Sparta might injure his own native state of 
Athens. The Spartans acted on his advice with terrible effect. 
The *^thenians failed in their attack on Syracuse, and were 
attacked in their turn. Their once invincible fleet was caught 
and crushed in the harbour of Syracuse. Their army strug- 
gling in vain to escape, was at last forced to surrender en 
masse (413). But even now the war did not end. Sparta 
did not take full advantage of her opportunity, and Athens 
showed wonderful resource and courage. The war went on for 
nearly nine years more. The finances of the combatants were 
so exhausted that they appealed to the Persian king, the 
common enemy of Greece, for money ; and it was an alliance 
between Persia and Sparta which at last allowed Lysander, the 
Spartan admiral, to deal Athens a blow from which she could 
not recover. The Athenian fleet was crushed at Aegospotami 
(405), and in the next year Athens was blockaded and forced 
by the pressure of famine to surrender. Her empire was lost ; 
her walls were destroyed ; and the proud city was reduced to 
a level with the rest of the city-states of Greece. 

If Athens had won in the war, she might perhaps have 
created a state sufficiently large and strong to resist a foreign 
, invader. The victory of Sparta meant the ruin of 
the Pelo- Greece ; for Sparta could conquer, but could neither 
ponnesian organize nor govern. There was no state strong 
^^' enough to weld the whole nation into a single 

power ; the disintegration of Greece went on at a rapid rate, 
and at the end of a little more tban sixty years Greece came 
into subjection to the kingdom of Macedon. 

Sparta was at first supreme, and the Athenian Empire was 



The Disintegration of Greece 27 

utterly broken up. The Spartan king, Agesilaus, desired to 
use the new Spartan power in a way which conflicted with the 
conservative traditions of the state. He even led an army over 
to Asia Minor, and contemplated an expedition against the vast 
but incoherent empire of Persia ; but while he was in Asia Minor 
there came news that in Greece a coalition had been formed 
against Sparta, and Agesilaus was summoned home to deal with 
it. In actual battle, Sparta could still win ; but new forces 
were rising which in the end overthrew her supremacy. Athens 
profited by the embroilment of Sparta with Persia to rebuild the 
walls that connected her with the sea ; she regained some part 
of her former empire, though on a new and more liberal basis. 
But more important than the revival of Athens The rise of 
was the rise of Thebes. Thebes had played Thebes, 
a rather dishonourable part in Greek history up to the present. 
She had contributed little to the stream of Greek culture ; 
she had taken the part of the Persians in the great war of 
independence, and at the close of that war some voices were 
raised for her destruction ; her citizens were considered to 
be unintelligent and slow, famous for their heavy, muscular 
bodies, and for nothing else. But now a new spirit was 
stirring in Thebes. Her soldiers had always been stubborn 
fighters, and now they were led by generals (of whom Epami- 
nondas was the chief) who gave them a new formation, and 
instructed them to adopt new tactics in their battles. Greek 
battles were usaally a conflict of two lines of men of equal length, 
and the struggle took place simultaneously along the whole 
length of the line. But it was the practice of Epaminondas to 
strengthen one part of his line by increasing the number of ranks 
there, and to bring that part into action first. When it had 
overthrown the thin line over against it, it could take the rest 
of the enemy's line in the rear, while the rest of the Theban 
army attacked it in front. 

Sparta and Thebes were now the two great antagonists in 
Greece, around whom the other states of Greece arranged them- 
selves in constantly shifting combinations ; for Battle of 
no kind of stability could ever be established in Leuctra. 
the inter-state relations of Greece. At first, Sparta, with the 
assistance of the prestige and gold of Persia, to which state she 



28 Outlines of European History 

condescended to appeal, more than held her own ; but there 
came a great change in 371. Spartan policy had managed to 
isolate the Thebans from their allies, and in that year a Spartan 
army, confident of victory, attacked the Thebans at Leuctra. 
But Epaminondas employed the new formation with deadly 
effect. The Spartans showed all the courage for which their 
name was renowned, but they were out-manoeuvred and out- 
fought, and by this single blow military supremacy in Grreece 
passed from Sparta for ever. 

Would Thebes succeed where Sparta had failed ? AYould 
Thebes be able to form a strong and permanent state, or con- 
The Theban federacy of states, and make Greece able to hold her 
supremacy. own against the power in the north that threatened 
her ? While Epaminondas lived, it seemed as if such a result 
were possible. He was a statesman of broader views than any 
that Greece had known, with the possible exception of Pericles. 
Some have called him the greatest statesman that Greece ever 
produced ; and he was certainly one of her greatest soldiers. 
His mihtary exploits were not only successful, but showed a 
clearness of conception, and a quickness of execution unusual 
in Greek warfare. Thrice he invaded the Peloponnese. Twice 
he threatened the hitherto unapproached city of Sparta. He 
called new states into being, and arranged the old ones 
in new alliances. But in 362, in the hour of victory, he 
was killed at the battle of Mantinea, and Thebes at once 
sank from her high position. The last hope of Greek unity 
disappeared. 

Greece had twenty-four years of freedom yet before her ; but, 
even to many contemporaries, her doom seemed certain. Greece 
was great still. Her work for civilization and humanity was not 
over, and in some respects, had not yet reached its highest point. 
The poets of Greece were not as great as in the great days of 
Pericles, and the theatre was no longer occupied by plays that 
are among the masterpieces of all literature. But in philosophy 
and science her thinkers were proceeding with more assured 
step to greater victories than ever. Plato (427-347) and 
Aristotle (384-322) both belong to this period ; and both, in 
their different ways, were laying the foundations of European 
thouofht and knowledo'c. The mind of man will never lose the 



Macedon and Greece 29 

marks of the impulse that these two great thinkers gave in 
metaphysics and ethics, and in all the sciences which are con- 
cerned with the organization of human Hfe. 

But the political life of Greece was changing rapidly, and 
for the worse. The country was without any principle of unity. 
Mutual jealousies made alliances short-lived ; the ^. r 
only principle of inter-state action was to unite sion of 
against the strongest power. Nor was it only state Greece, 
that was pitted against state ; within each city the rivalry of 
the parties was so intense that it often endangered its very 
existence. The charge of financial corruption was so con- 
stantly brought that there must have been frequent cause for it. 
Lastly, though the Greeks could still occasionally show military 
courage, in the richer states the citizens were no longer willing 
to bear the burden of mihtary service themselves, but preferred 
to hire mercenary soldiers, whose loyalty and obedience depended 
upon prompt payment. 



CHAPTER V 
Macedon and Greece 

Philip, King; of Macedon 359 B.C. 

Battle of Chaeroneia 338 B.C. 

Battle of Issus 333 B.C. 

Death of Alexander 323 B.C. 

Geeece thus disintegrating, corrupt, and unwarlike was be- 
coming aware of another state, of a very different kind, which 
threatened her from the north. Macedonia was a Character of 
somewhat vague name for all the district, lying Macedonia, 
round the valleys of the Axius and the Haliacmon. It lay out- 
side of the limits of true Greece, which terminated in the north of 
Thessaly with the pass of Tempe and the Cambunian range ; but 
the population of Macedonia was akin to the Greeks in race and 
language, and the royal house of Macedon had always been re- 
cognized as of true Greek stock. But the population, as a whole, 
had lagged far behind the development of southern Greece ; and 



30 



Outlines of European History 



the Macedonians resembled rather the Greeks of the Homeric 
Age than the contemporaries of Pericles. The government was 
in the hands of a monarchy, resting roughly upon the principle of 




6EOR5E PHILIP* SO 



heredity. The people, most of them mountaineers and engaged 
in pastoral pursuits, were hardy and warhke— an ideal material 
in the hands of a great commander. The Greeks were not 
really deficient in courage, and they far excelled the Macedo- 
nians in intellectual powers. 
But Macedonia had on her side 
a population whose ideal was 
war, and she had political unity 
in the hands of a royal family 
that produced rulers of the 
highest excellence. 

Philip (sometimes called 
Philip the Great) had come to 
the Macedonian throne in 359. He had lived as a political hostage 
in Thebes from 868 to 3G5, when Thebes, under Epaminondas, 





A Coin of Philip of Macedon. 
(^From Zimmern's *' Greek History.") 



Macedon and Greece 



31 



was at the very height of her short-lived power. What he had 
learned from that point of vantage of the divisions of Greece, 
the corruption of her politicians, and the develop- Phiiip of 
ment of tactics by Epaminondas, sank deep into Macedon. 
his mind, and taught him the way to all his later victories. The 
last defenders of Greek liberty 
denounced him as a barbarian, 
and explained his career as 
actuated by an unbridled lust 
of conquest; they thought 
of him as a more successful 
inheritor of the ideas and 
methods of Darius and Xerxes. 
But Philip was really a man 
of great ability, with a real 
appreciation for Greek culture. 
His methods were little more 
barbarous than those of the 
Greeks themselves, and his 
ambition was not more un- 
scrupulous that that of Ly- 
sander or Agesilaus, but only 
more successful. 

The divisions of Greece 
soon gave him an excuse for 
interference. War Demos- 
broke out between thenes. 
Thebes and Phocis, in which 
the Phocians seized on the 
temple treasures of Delphi, 
wherewith to pay their soldiers 
and to hire mercenaries. Philip 
interfered in the struggle, and 
by intrigue and force made 
himself master of the pass of 
Thermopylae, the key of 
Central Greece (346). From that hour Greece was doomed. 
Only in unity could she have found safety, and no principle 
of cohesion existed amonojst the different states. But before free 




Demosthenes. 
{From the Statue in the Vatican.) 



32 



Outlines of European History 



Greece fell she found at least a worthy champion in Demosthenes, 
the great orator of Athens. He was no soldier, hardly even a 
statesman ; but all that eloquence could do in the service of the 
most glowing patriotism was done by Demosthenes. And he did 
much. He inspired the pleasure-loving Athenians with an energy 
long unknown ; he induced Thebes and Corinth, Megara and 
Achaia to join with Athens in a last struggle for liberty. But all 
was in vain. The great might of Macedonia, directed by a single 





^J'^^)!^^- 



The Lion of Chaeroneia. 

(From Zimmern's " Greek History.") 

This lion was placed at the edge of an enclosure where the bones of those slain 
in the battle were buried. 

hand, and acting now by force and now by fraud, gained year 
by year a greater ascendency in Greece. At last it came to 
open war, and, in 338, free Greece fought at Chaeroueia her 
last battle. She fought well, but unsuccessfully ; and when 
the day was over Macedonia controlled Greece. Philip passed 
on into the Peloponnese, receiving submission everywhere except 
from Sparta. He did not trouble to attack Sparta, for he was 
occupied with a great design for the invasion of Persia. He 
had made arrangements for the supply of contingents from 



Macedon and Greece 33 

most of the Greek states when he was assassinated in the 
year 336. 

Philip's death did not retard the march of Macedonia 
towards empire, for he was succeeded by his son Alexander — 
perhaps the greatest military genins of the ancient Alexander 
world. Under him the armies of the Macedonians the Great, 
and of their G-reek allies passed victoriously through all 
Western Asia until the Himalayas were crossed and India 
entered, and a great new chapter of human history was 
opened. 

Demosthenes regarded Alexander, equally with 'his father 
Philip, as a barbarian. But Alexander had been taught by the 
great philosopher Aristotle ; he was an enthusiastic admirer of 
Homer ; and in his Asiatic campaigns he spoke of himself as a 
missionary of Greek culture. The G-reek states bowed unwill- 
ingly to his control, but he regarded himself rather as the 
representative than the conqueror of Greece, and sometimes 
spoke of his expedition as though it were an act of revenge 
upon Persia for the evils that she had inflicted upon Greece 
one hundred and fifty years before, in the expeditions of Darius 
and Xerxes. 

What were the causes of the unsurpassed victories of this 
young prince ? For one thing, we can see that Persia, though 
srreat and wealthy, was as a military power utterly ^^ 

ii. TT I -u J J ■ i. T_ ^^1 T^e military 

rotten. Her vast hordes, driven to battle, un- methods of 
drilled, badly equipped, and badly commanded, Alexander 
would have gone down before any resolute attack. ^^^ Great. 
And on the Macedonian side there was the best military 
science of the age in the hands of a 'consummate military 
genius. In Greece, as a rule, no special training for war was 
given, and there was little distinction in social standing or 
knowledge between the soldier in the ranks and his com- 
mander. But in Macedonia the officers were a class apart, 
and the army thus was of a distinctly professional type. Siege 
apparatus, too, had been immensely developed by the Mace- 
donians ; in the Peloponnesian war the Spartans had never 
even tried to break through the long walls of Athens, but no 
town was so strongly fortified or so bravely defended as to be 
able to resist the siege-engines of Alexander. The ordinary 

D 



34 



Outlines of European History 




Macedon and Greece 35 

foot soldiers of the Macedonian army were arranged many 
ranks deep, and carried as their chief weapon the long spear or 
sarissa. In this formation they were known as a "phalanx." 
The spears were so long, and the lines stood so close together, 
that many spear points projected before the first line of the 
phalanx. No force, then or at any later date, could stand up 
and resist its direct attack ; Greeks, Persians, and even Romans 
were swept away whenever they dared to abide its onset. But 
quite as important as the phalanx was the heavily armed 
Macedonian cavalry. It was this arm that Alexander usually 
commanded himself, and it was with them that he usually gave 
the decisive blow in his battles. 

Alexander took up the plan of his father for an invasion of 
Persia. In 334 he passed over into Asia Minor, with a force 
consisting of thirty-five thousand foot and four The invasion 
thousand five hundred horse— a small force for so of Persia, 
great an enterprise and so great a triumph as that which lay 
before him. 

His first encounter with the enemy was at the river 
Granicus, where a large Persian force opposed the passage of 
the river. He forced his way across after a fierce tussle, and 
then passed along by the west coast of Asia Minor, and nearly 
all the Greek cities of those regions surrendered to him, and 
those that resisted were taken. Then from the sea-coast he 
struck into Phrygia, the centre of Asia Minor, " cut the Gordian 
knot," and nowhere found any Persian force to resist him. 
From Phrygia he marched in a south-easterly direction through 
the passes in Mount Taurus and the Cilician Gates towards 
Syria. There was no sign of resistance until he approached 
the Mediterranean, and there at Issus, in the year 333, he 
encountered a Persian army under King Darius, whose trust, 
here and always, was in mere undiscipKned numbers. For the 
first time the Persians experienced the tactics of Alexander in 
a pitched battle. They were scattered at the first onset, and 
Darius fled. 

After the battle of Issus, Alexander might have followed 
Darius with a certainty of success ; but he contemptuously 
left him to organize further resistance while he passed south 
through Syria into Egypt. He met with fierce resistance in 



36 



Outlines of European History 




Macedon and Greece 37 

the city of Tyre, and the capture of that city was perhaps 
Alexander's greatest feat of arms, but all difficulties were over- 
come. There was no need to conquer Eg-ypt, for Alexander in 
the Macedonians were not more foreign than the Syria and 
Persians, and the inhabitants welcomed the change ^SVP^- 
of masters. Alexander founded the city of Alexandria, and 
marched across the desert to the temple of the god whom the 
Greeks called Zeus Ammon. He was greeted by the priests 
there as being himself the son of Zeus, and henceforth he 
gradually assumed almost divine honours. 

But now the Persian king had to be opposed again. 
Alexander marched back through Syria, crossed into Mesopo- 
tamia, and overwhelmed the vast horde of the The extent of 
Persian army in the battle of Arbela (331). All Alexander's 
the Persian cities fell into his hands ; first Baby- conquests. 
Ion, then Susa, then Persepolis, the ancient capital of Persia. 
Then Alexander led his armies into the outlying parts of the 
Persian Empire — north towards the Caspian ; east into what is 
now Afghanistan ; and then south into the Indian peninsula. 
He had hard fighting to face, and these campaigns show that 
his victories over the Persians were not merely due to the 
weakness of his opponents. He attempted no task which 
he did not accomplish ; until at last by the banks of the 
Hyphasis, in the Punjab, his soldiers mutinied, and Alex- 
ander, perhaps himself feeling that his march had extended 
far enough, turned back by new and unknown routes to 
Babylon. 

His unparalleled conquests had effected a change in Alexander 
himself. In conquering the Orientals he had become some- 
thing of an Oriental himself. He had lost the simple freedom 
of Macedonian manners, wrapped himself round with the 
mystery of an Eastern court, and in some instances behaved to 
his old companions with injustice and cruelty. But there 
seemed no reason to think that his career of victory was at an 
end. He was planning a campaign in the west which would 
have brought him into collision with the commercial power of 
Carthage, and the rising power of Rome. Such a campaign 
would have been attended, whatever its success, with great 
consequences for European civihzation. But he was not 



Outlines of European History 




Macedon and Greece 39 

destined to enter upon it. A fever seized him and he died at 
Babylon in 323. 

Alexander's campaigns were not transitory in their effects. 
Few soldiers indeed have so clearly influenced the course of 
history. He was no mere military conqueror ; he The results of 
was an organizer and a statesman. He came to Alexander's 
the East bearing the seeds of Greek culture, and the *^^^^^'^- 
result of his conquests was that Greek civilization was no longer 
confined within narrow limits, but spread up to the Black Sea, 
over Asia Minor and Syria, and Mesopotamia, and Egypt. 
The Greek language and Greek ideas became dominant between 
the Adriatic and the Euphrates, and this is an all-important 
fact both for the religious and political history of those lands 
until Mahomedanism, m the seventh century A.D., brought an 
influence of a very different kind. 

Thus Greek history does not end with the death of Alex- 
ander. His vast empire was too loosely compacted to be held 
together by any genius weaker than his own ; and The future of 
his death was the signal for a long struggle among Alexander's 
his generals. Before many years were past the ^"^P^^^- 
general result of the struggle became clear. The unity of the 
empire was broken up, and several powerful states were built 
out of its ruins. What these were may best be seen on the 
accompanying map. The chief are the Kingdom of Macedonia, 
still powerful, though it was never again to dominate the world 
as it had done under Alexander ; the Kingdom of Egypt, where 
the family of the Ptolemies ruled for nearly three more cen- 
turies ; and the Kingdom of Syria, where the Seleucid^ main- 
tained a great show of power until their conflict with the 
Romans revealed its rottenness. But besides these three great 
states, Asia Minor, Thrace, Greece, and the islands of the 
Eastern Mediterranean were divided into a great number of 
free cities, kingdoms, leagues and tribes of great variety of 
culture and constitution, but all bearing marks of the impulse 
which the East had received from the life-work of Alexander. 



40 Outlines of European History 

CHAPTER VI 
The Rise of Rome 

Foundation of Rome 753 B. C. 

Expulsion of the Kings 510 B.C. 

The life of the Greek East went on then uninterruptedly after 

the death of Alexander ; but already another power had arisen 

which was destined to overshadow and to conquer the divided 

fragments of his empire. We turn to the story of Rome, 

The Romans were akin to the Greeks in race and language : 

their culture, religion, and government spraug from the same 

^1- 1-. roots. Bat, though the resemblance between the 

The Roman ' . ° 

character two peoples IS striking, it IS still more important 

and great- to mark the wide divergence in their character and 
"^^^* destiny. We have seen how the great successes of 

the G^reeks were achieved in the regions of the intellect and 
the imagination ; the successes of Rome belong to the domain 
of practical energy. The Romans produced indeed great artists, 
poets, and philosophers ; but their work is mostly an adaptation 
of what had been done by Greece. It is valuable, but rarely, 
if ever, original. But the importance of the work of Rome 
in war, in government, and in law, cannot be exaggerated. They 
laid in this respect the unshaken foundation of the social and 
political life of Europe ; just as the Greeks laid the foundations 
of its intellectual development. 

The work that they did corresponds to the well-marked cha- 
racter of the people. The Greeks were in practice individualists, 
but to the Romans the social bond, whether of the family or the 
whole state, was the most sacred of considerations. The virtues 
that they praised most highly were those which tended to hold 
the state and society together, and to induce each individual 
to surrender himself to the service of the whole. The Romans 
have given to all Western nations their own word " religion," 
and it is significant that this word meant to them a " bond of 
union," the " tie " that holds men together. Thus while the 
political and social life of Greece shows disunion and dispersion, 



The Rise of Rome 41 

an incapacity for public action tending permanently to a 
definite goal, and thus complete failure in the end ; we see 
in the history of Rome unity, perseverance, and discipline, 
loyalty and subordination in every part of the state, a strong 
insistence upon the family tie, and great reverence paid to the 
mother, and thus in the end the greatest political and military 
success of history. 

The peninsula of Italy is more fertile and less mountainous 
than Greece, but it is occupied along its whole length by the 
range of the Apennines, which run much nearer The geo- 
to the east than to the west coast. Thus the chief grraphy of 
rivers, with the exception of the Po, the greatest ^^^^y* 
of all, run into the western sea, and it is on that side that the 
chief plains, harbours, and cities are to be found. The chief 
of the really Italian streams (for the Po lay outside of what 
the Eomans called Italy) was the Tiber ; and some twelve 
miles from the mouth of this violent and yellow river was the 
City of Rome. There were several hills near to the banks of 
the river which served as fortresses in the early days. Ships 
could work their way up as far as Rome, and thus the city 
became the harbour of the adjoining Latian plain, and, from 
our first knowledge of it, had a vigorous commerce. Rome 
too, it should be noticed, is in the very centre of the Italian 
peninsula ; and that peninsula is in the very centre of the 
Mediterranean. She was thus excellently situated for the 
building up of the empire whose growth it is our business now 
to trace. 

When first we gain a clear view of Roman history we find the 
peninsula occupied by four main races with many sub-divisions. 
In the valley of the Po there were the Gauls, akin The races 
in race to French, Welsh, 8,nd Irish. Then to the of Italy, 
west of the Apennines there lay Etruria, inhabited by a race 
of unknown origin, more advanced at first than the Romans 
themselves, skilled beyond them in architecture, and possessed 
of a more mysterious religion. We may regard the people that 
lived on either side of the Apennines during its middle course 
as forming essentially one race : the Sabines to the north and 
the Samnites to the south are the chief names, and of their stock 
the Romans and Latins were the most advanced portion ; then 



42 Outlines of European History 




GEORGE PHILIP* SON I 



The Rise of Rome 43 

the southern shores of Italy and Sicilj were inhabited by Greeks, 
who thus brought to the Eoman frontiers the higher culture 
of Greece. 

By what steps did Eome make herself mistress of these 
races, and of all the peninsula ? Her first constitution was not 
unlike that which we have seen in all the earliest states of 
Greece. There was a monarchy, with a council of nobles 
{senate), and a general assembly of the people (comitid). This 
time is covered for us with the mists of legend. The Eomans 
told the story of seven kings who reigned in Rome before the 
last was driven out and a republic established in 510 B.C. It 
seems that during this time the city was subordinate to the 
Etruscan race. After 510 we can follow the story of Rome 
with confidence as to the accuracy of the main features of the 
narrative. 

Mommsen's History of Eome is the greatest of modern books on the 
period ; but it only goes down to the time of Julius Caesar. How and 
Leigh's History of Eome covers the same period in one volume. Pel- 
ham's Outlines of Eoman History tells the whole of Roman history down 
to 476 A.D. in one volume, and is very clear and valuable both for its 
statements and its references. Duruy's History of Eome gives an 
admirably lucid and interesting narrative of the whole of Roman 
history, and is enriched with a vast number of illustrations. Horton's 
Histoj-y of the Eomans and the abridged edition of Mommsen are both 
valuable. 

Roman history is much more difficult to illustrate from the ancient 
historians than Greek history ; but a translation of Livy (Church and 
Brodribb) or of Polyhius (Shuckburgh) would prove valuable, especially 
the latter. Plutarch's Lives are even more valuable for Roman than 
for Greek History. For the late republican period, Cicero's Letters 
(translated by Jeans, and also by Shuckburgh) are invaluable for 
illustrations. 

Schreiber's Atlas and Murray's maps as before. 



44 Outlines of European History 

CHAPTER VII 
Patricians and Plebeians at Rome 

Secession of Plebs to the Sacred Mount 494 B.C. 
Consulship thrown open to Plebeians . 367 B.C. 

The story of Rome falls into two main divisions. There is the 
story of how Rome gradually asserted her superiority over her 
The twofold i^eighbours until all Italy was Roman ; and there is 
division of the story of how she ordered her own government, 
Roman harmonizing all conflicting elements until the state 

history. ^^^ welded into a solid whole. These two stories 

are intimately connected at every moment, but for the sake 
of clearness they may be given separately. 

And firstly for the internal life of Rome. Upon the fall of 
the old monarchy the power of the king was transferred to 
The early ^wo officers called consuls (colleagues). They were 
constitution elected, and held office only for a year ; but during 
of Rome. ^]^^^ yg^-j, ^j^gy ^qj.q ^^le commanders of the Roman 
armies, and the chief judges of Rome. The old council of 
nobles, the senate or assembly of elders still existed. Its 
business was to give advice to the consuls, but we shall see how 
in process of time it won for itself an independent position, and 
became the real government of Rome. The assembly of the 
people could take place in several forms, of which the chief 
were called the meeting of the centuries (the comitia centuriata), 
and the meeting of the tribes (the comitia trihuta). It is essen- 
tial to the understanding of Roman history that the difference 
between these two assemblies should be clearly grasped. Both 
came to contain all the citizens of Rome, but in the meeting 
of the centuries, which was at first the meeting of the army of 
Rome, the voting was so arranged that wealth had the prepon- 
derating power. In the meeting of the tribes (a tribe was a 
local division of Roman territory) all citizens were on the 
same footing, and the decision of the tribes represented the 
feelings of the majority of Roman citizens without distinction 
of birth or wealth. 



Patricians and Plebeians at Rome 45 

Immediately after tlie expulsion of tlie kings, Rome had 
difficult constitutional problems to face. The population was 
divided into two classes — the patricians, the old Patricians 
aristocratic families of Rome, who at first alone and 
possessed power in the state ; and the plebeians. Plebeians, 
who, whether rich or poor, were outside of the privileged 
circle, and who, though they fought in the armies of Rome, 
and had a vote in the comitia, were excluded from all office and 
power, and were, in fact, at the mercy of the patricians. 

The domestic history of Rome for two centuries is filled 
with the contentions of these two classes ; with the struggle of 
the privileged and the unprivileged citizens, which j^^^^j.^ ^f 
took sometimes, but not always, the shape of a the strug-gie 
struggle between the rich and the poor. The between the 
struggle is, in its details, obscure ; but nowhere ^^ ^^^' 
else in Roman history do we see so clearly the genius of the 
Romans for citizenship, their patience and reasonableness, their 
energy, persistence, and practical good sense. For this struggle 
— a struggle of a kind which would have led up to a civil war 
in Greece, and in most modern states — was settled by a long 
and slow process of protests, concessions, and conciliation, during 
the course of which the Romans could boast that the sword had 
never been drawn or blood shed. And, .therefore, when the 
struggle was over, and the plebeians had won on every point, no 
bitterness was left behind, the unity of the state was complete, 
and the common enemy could found no hopes on the war of 
tactions. 

We must now mark the chief steps in the long contest. In 
494 the plebeians, indignant with the vigorous enforcement of 
the law of debt, decided to withdraw from the state, g^ 
They marched out from Rome, and settled a few victory of 
miles away, on what was called the Sacred Mount, the pie- 
It was a " strike " for political objects, the first ''^'^"^• 
" strike " recorded in history. The numbers of the plebeians and 
the services they rendered to the Roman armies made resistance 
impossible, and the patricians yielded. The plebeians were to 
have officers of their own, called tribunes of the people, who 
should have the power of interfering between a plebeian and a 
patrician judge, the power of setthng cases where plebeians alone 



46 ^ Outlines of European History 

were concerned, and the power of calling the plebeians together 
in their tribes for the discussion of questions and the passing of 
laws. But these laws would be only binding on themselves, not 
on the state as a whole. The result of the " Secession to the 
Sacred Mount " was the formation of a separate government — 
a kind of trade union — for the plebeians. Thus, the creation of 
tribunes of the people (first two, then ten, in number), though 
it ultimately led to the union of the state, at first emphasized its 
division. Rome consisted not of one state, but of two. 

The next serious struggle was over the question of jurisdic- 
tion. The consuls were the judges of the whole state, and the 
consuls were in all cases patricians. The laws of 
virs and the Rome, as of all early states, were traditional, and 
Twelve had never been reduced to writing. It rested there - 

Tables of fQj.g ^^[i]^ ^]^q patrician judges to decide not only as 
to fact but also as to law. The plebeian could not 
be sure when he was overstepping the bounds of legality ; he was 
completely at the mercy of judges drawn from the ranks of his 
rivals and opponents. The plebeians, therefore, demanded that 
the laws should be written down ; and at the same time, they 
claimed an extension of their political rights. A commission of 
ten men (decemvirs) was therefore appointed, who drew up, in 
the following year, the ten tables of the law, to which, a year later, 
two more tables were added. This was followed by an obscure 
struggle, whereby, in 449, the plebeians gained great additional 
powers. For it was granted (1) that the decision of the people 
in their tribes should be binding on the whole state ; (2) that 
there should be an appeal to the people from the decision of all 
magistrates ; and (3) that the persons of the tribune should be 
defended by special safeguards. This was the very magna carta 
of the plebeians. The " two states " were now blended into one ; 
but still the patricians alone were eligible to the consulship and 
the higher offices of the state, and they refused to admit the 
plebeians to intermarriage with their own caste. 

But the chief barriers were soon swept down, though the 
patricians fought to resist or delay each point with wonderful 
tenacity. In 445, plebeians were allowed to perform the duties 
of the consulship, though with another title (that of "military 
tribunes with consular power"). Thus the patricians abandoned 



The Roman Conquest of Italy 47 

the reality, and still fought for the shadow. The final step 
did not come for nearly seventy years ; but then it was decided 
(by the Licinian Law, 367), that the consulship Final victory 
was to be restored, and that of the two consuls of the 
one must be, and both might be, plebeians, plebeians. 
Still, the patricians tried to keep some scrap of office and cere- 
mony which might mark the class difference. But the tide of 
political equality soon swept away the last real obstacles, 
though to the end of the republic trivialities remained, which 
served to remind the Romans that there had once been an 
unbridged gulf between the two orders. But after 339, 
Roman citizenship was a privilege that effaced all minor dis- 
tinctions. The struggle of the privileged and the unprivileged 
was over, and the struggle of rich and poor had not jet begun 
in its intenser form. 



CHAPTER VIII 
The Roman Conquest of Italy 

Capture of Veil 395 B.C. 

Battle of Allia 390 B. C. 

Samnite wars 343-290 B. C. 

Defeat of Pyrrhus 275 B.C. 

While Rome was gaining this most important of victories over 
herself, she was also, with slow but irresistible march, subduing 
her neighbours. The chief stages are these — 

First, she made herself the head of the Latin League — that 
is, head and director of the tribes and towns that p^^.^^ ^^^ 
occupied the " wide plains " of Latium. quests of 

Then she came into conflict with the Etrurian Rome, 
power that lay bayond the Tiber. The Etruscans suffered 
from dissension and some inner cause of decay. The great 
Roman victory came in 395, when the capture of the great city 
of Yeii announced that Etruria must fade before Rome. 



48 Outlines of European History 

But hardly had Yeii fallen when a terrible danger from the 
North threatened all Italy. The Gauls of the North were in 
The Gallic niotion. An army of fierce Celtic warriors, with 
conquest of two-handed swords, swept down on Etruria, and 
Rome. refused to stay at the bidding of Rome. In 390 

they approached Rome itself, and at the river Allia their fierce 
onslaught scattered the Raman army, and the city itself fell into 
their hands. It might seem that the power of Rome was over- 
whelmed ; but the unstable Gallic horde soon passed on. The 
stubborn and well-compacted Roman power rose again ; and 
the Gallic deluge, perhaps, rather helped Rome by weakening 
her neighbours. 

Fifty years later, Rome began a long conflict with the 
Samnites, the fiercest of all the Italian races. The Samnite 
TheSamnite wars are reckoned as lasting (with considerable 
wars. intervals) from 343 to 290. But they really were 

prolonged until 275 ; and even in 275 there were parts of 
Samnium not really subdued. The last sign of Samnite hatred 
for the Roman name does not disappear until 83 B.C. 

But to label the period from 343 to 275, "the Samnite 
wars," is misleading. What are called the Samnite wars were 
really the struggle of all the Italian races against the advancing 
power of Rome. The dauntless Samnites were the heart of 
the resistance, and the chief fighting was in their mountain- 
valleys. But before the struggle was over, all the races of 
Italy had taken a part in the effort to throw off the Roman 
supremacy. The Greeks of Campania, the Latins of the imme- 
diate neighbourhood of Rome, the Etruscans, the Greeks of 
Southern Italy, and the Gauls themselves, had all,^t different 
times and with ill-planned action, tried to strike down the 
City of the Seven Hills. Nay, the Italians, conscious of their 
own inferiority, had appealed to lands beyond sea, and in 280 
Pyrrhus of Epirus had brought his Macedonian phalanx and 
Macedonian tactics to assist the armies that fought against 
Rome. Pyrrhus was the most scientific soldier of his day, and 
he defeated the Romans in two great battles ; but the Romans 
learnt from defeat, and in 275 the battle of Beneventum 
wrecked his hopes, and made Italy outside of the Po valley 
completely Roman. 



The Roman Conquest of Italy 



49 



These were great conquests ; but Alexander had made 
greater. The really wonderful thing about Eome is not 
that she conquered (other nations and states could The secret 
do that), but that she maintained her conquests, of the Roman 
For the territories thus won did not fall from her ^^^^0"^^- 
like those of the Athenian Empire ; they did not split up into 
petty states, like the empire of Alexander; but they were joined 
to her in a permanent union which laid the foundations of 
the political structure of Europe. 

What is the secret of the permanence of Eome's military suc- 
cesses ? The Romans were not conspicuous among the nations 
for their delight in war. The Homeric " joy of battle " or the 
northern Berserker's 
martial fury is rarely 
found among them. 
Their military success 
was due to deliberate 
thought, and above all, 
to discipline. Their most 
characteristic weapon — 
the short sword— did 
not seem likely to defeat 
the great sword of the 
Gauls, or the long spear 
of the Macedonian 
phalanx. But experience 
showed that, backed by 
Roman discipline and 

tactical skill, it could triumph over all rival weapons ; and 
it remained for some eight hundred years the most trusted 
weapon of the conquering Romans. But they knew, more 
clearly than any ancient people, that it is not only on the 
battlefield that wars are decided. The Roman soldier carried 
not only his sword and defensive armour, but also a spade ; 
and the practice, possible only to perfectly disciplined troops, 
of throwing up a defensive camp at the end of each day's 
march, goes far in accounting for the absence of surprises 
and unforeseen disasters in the history of Roman warfare. 
Wherever, also, the Roman soldier went, the Roman state 




Eoman Legionary Soldiers with Pilum, 
Short Sword, and Shield. 

(Copied from the Military Figures on the Basis of 
the Column of Antoninus Pius.) 



50 Outlines of European History 

built roads — which were at first entirely military in their objects 
— and the rapidity with which by their means the Romans 
could march their troops into an enemy's country, was often 
decisive for the suppression of a rebellion or the succouring of 
a hard-pressed garrison. Lastly, we may note their habit of 
planting permanent garrisons (coloniae) in all conquered 
territory. The soldiers in these "colonies" were Roman 
citizens, the adjacent lands were divided among them, and 
they formed an all-important support of the Roman dominions 
in all parts of Italy. Discipline, Roads, Colonies — these three 
words go far towards reading the riddle of Roman military 
successes. 

But the causes of the permanence of the Roman successes 
are to be found even more in political than in military 
considerations. She treated the races and states that she 
conquered with a skill and a considerateness which made 
rebellion difficult, and at the same time took away much of 
the sting of defeat and consequently much of the desire to rebel. 
All union among the defeated states was broken up : " Divide 
in order to govern " was a central motto of Roman statesman- 
ship ; and the Romans were careful to maintain distinctions 
of privilege and rank among those defeated states whom they 
henceforth called not " subjects " but " allies." But the chief 
mark of their policy to those whom they conquered was not 
cunning, but generosity. The European world had known 
nothing like the generous and conciliatory treatment which 
Rome showed to those whom she conquered during her greatest 
period ; and as we shall see, the policy of confidence and 
generosity was amply repaid to Rome in the hour of her 
greatest trial. 



Rome and Carthage 51 

CHAPTER IX 
Rome and Carthage 

First Punic war 264-241 B.Co 

Hannibal in Italy 218 B.C. 

Battle of Cannae 216 B.C. 

Battle of Zama 202 B.C. 

TiiE withdrawal of Pjrrhiis left Eorne the unchallenged 
mistress of the Italian peninsula. But before ten years were 
passed she was struggling with Carthage for a stake greater 
than either state knew at the time ; for the overthrow of 
Carthage gave to Rome the mastery of all Mediterranean lands. 

Carthago was a colony from Phoenicia, which, originally 
planted as a commercial outpost of Tyre, had grown into 
a great independent power. Her commercial 
activity outstripped that of Rome. The Cartha- ^^^' 

giniaus had often tried to master the whole island of Sicily, 
and though they had failed they held the western part, and had 
in Lilybaeum a fortress of immense strength, which Pyrrhus 
had already attacked in vain. 

Carthage was in many ways a great contrast to Rome. 
The religion of Carthage was Oriental in type, and often cruel 
in practice. In social and political matters, the great contrast 
is that Carthage altogether lacked the firmly welded unity of 
the Roman state. Rome was a conquering state ; but she had 
so treated the subject states that they felt little resentment 
against the conquerer. Her soldiers were citizens ; her citizens 
were united in devotion to the state ; patriotism was the real 
reh'gion of Rome. If we turn from this picture to Carthage, 
we find fierce factions among the people themselves, and the 
conquered territory so ready for revolt that no town except 
Carthage was allowed to keep her fortifications. We find the 
armies of Carthage collected by the offer of wage from all the 
nations with whom she was in contact, and though this 
mercenary force usually fought excellently, it could clearly 
not be relied upon in extremity, like the armed citizens of 
Rome. It is this lack of cohesion in the Carthaginian state 



52 Outlines of European History 

which accounts for her failure in the long contest with Eome, 
despite the men of genius she produced and the wonderful 
victories she won. 

The struggle between Rome and Carthage is the chief 
interest of Roman history from 264 to 201 ; and the second 
division of these Carthaginian (or Punic) wars forms the really 
heroic part of Roman military history. In the end Rome 
overthrew her great enemy, but so terrible was the impression 
she had received from the dangers that she had passed through 
with such difficulty, that she did not rest until, in 146, her 
defeated rival was utterly destroyed. 

The first Punic War (264-241) was fought for the posses- 
sion of Sicily, and in it the Romans had the support of the 
First Punic great Greek city of Syracuse. As the Cartha- 
War. ginians had a strong fleet, and the Romans had 

none, the course of the war was at first very uncertain. But 
Rome soon became aware of the necessity of having a fleet, and 
in 260 built one very rapidly and with great ingenuity and 
energy ; in the following year this extemporized fleet won by 
novel tactics a great victory over the superior ships of Carthage ; 
and though the naval supremacy thus won was often after- 
wards in danger, it was by means of it in the end that the 
Romans gained the victory and excluded the Carthaginians 
from Sicily. Two incidents of the war alone claim our notice 
in this survey. In 256, elated with their victories in Sicily, 
the Romans attempted the invasion of Africa, and at first 
with great success. Carthage itself was in danger ; but then 
the tide turned, and the Roman force on African soil was 
annihilated. A gleam, if not of success, at any rate of glory, 
came also at the end of the war to the Carthaginians in 
Sicily. There was great exhaustion on both sides, both of 
men and money, and the war dragged slowly along, as ancient 
wars often did. The command of the Carthaginian forces 
was taken by Hamilcar Barca, the great father of a greater 
son, and he, with small forces, held at bay the armies of Rome, 
and harassed them with guerilla warfare. He postponed, but 
could not prevent, the end. In 242 Lilybaeum fell ; the 
Carthaginian forces left Sicily, and Rome had won her first 
transmarine possession. 



Rome and Carthage 53 

It was twentj-four years before war broke out again, and 
in those years important events had happened. The Cartha- 
ginian state had been torn by a terrible war with ^he interval 
her own revolted mercenary troops. The Eomans between the 
had extended their dominion right over the valley "^^.ts. 
of the Po and up to the Alps, thus adding Ois-Alpine Gaul 
(that is, Gaul south of the Alps) to their possession. But the 
country was restless still, ready for rebellion against the new 
yoke, and eager to join any enemy of Eome. Carthage, mean- 




Reconstruction of a Roman Boarding-bridge in the First Punic War. 

TMs picture illustrates the novel tactics used by the Romans to counteract the superior 
naval skill of the Carthaginians. The boarding-bridge fastened the two ships together 
and made manoeuvring impossible. 

while, had gained territories which seemed to more than 
counterbalance the loss of Sicily. Hamilcar Barca had been 
entrusted with the attack on Spain, and his efforts, and 
those of his son-in-law, Hasdrubal, and his son, Hannibal, had 
succeeded in adding the whole of the Spanish peninsula, in 
name at least, to the possessions of Carthage. But in the 
course of the conquest Hannibal attacked Saguntum, a town 
which had placed itself under the protection of Rome ; and 
war was the inevitable result. 

The Romans imagined that the war would be fought ia 



54 Outlines of European History 

Spain, as the last war had been fought in Sicily, and they 
prepared to despatch armies to Spain. But they had left the 
The second genias of Hannibal out of their reckoning. 
Punic War. Europe has known no soldier of more commanding 
genius or of greater energy and enterprise. Hatred of Rome 
was with him a family tradition, a passion, and a religious 
duty. He anticipated the maxim of modern soldiers that 
attack is the best form of defence ; and while Rome was 
preparing to send her armies to Spain, this thunderbolt of war 
fell upon the plains of Italy. 

His march over the Pyrenees, through Southern Gaul, and 
over the Alps was unexampled at the time, and still remains 
The march unsurpassed. He descended on to the fertile plain 
of Hannibal, of the Po in 218, and the recently conquered 
Gauls came in great numbers to his standards. And then the 
great Carthaginian passed through Italy " like a conflagration 
in the pine-forests, or like the east wind over the waters." 
He twice defeated the Roman armies in the Po valley and then 
he crossed the Apennines and marched towards Rome. The 
Romans in vain tried to check his march. He found a way 
past them, and fell unexpectedly on a Roman army by the 
shores of Lake Trasimene (217). The Romans lost the 
consul in command and thirty thousand men, whether killed, 
wounded, or prisoners. Rome seemed at Hannibal's mercy, 
but he was little skilled in sieges, and he judged it best to^ 
break still further the power of Rome in the country districts 
before striking at the city itself. In the next year he met the 
largest army that Rome could collect, said to consist of eighty 
thousand men, at Cannae, by the banks of the river Aufidus 
(216). But the Roman army was out-manoeuvred and out- 
fought ; and the whole army was in effect destroyed. Rome 
never received so overwhelming, so apparently fatal a blow. 
If Rome's power had been based merely upon military strength 
and prestige, this day would have seen the end of her dominion. 

But the battle of Cannae marks, in fact, not the beginning 
of the end of Rome's power, but the highest point reached by 
The survival that of Hannibal. It is more important to under- 
of Rome. stand the cause of Rome's escape and triumph, than 
to follow the fighting of the following years. And first, Rome 



Rome and Carthage 55 

was saved by the fidelity of her allies, of the Italian states of 
the centre whom she had conquered, but whose support and 
goodwill she had secured by good treatment and a conciliatory 
policy. Hannibal had showed his supremacy over the Romans 
in the art of war ; it was Eoman supremacy in the art of 
government which gave Rome the victory in the end. Even 
after Trasimene, even after Cannae, the Central Italians felt 
that their interest lay with Rome and not with Carthage. 
And so, though the Greek cities of South Italy joined 
Hannibal, though Syracuse revolted from the Roman alliance, 
though the King of Macedonia promised assistance to Hanni- 
bal, Rome still had the population of Central Italy with 
her, and from this nucleus built up her power greater than 
before. 

Other causes contributed to Hannibal's gradual failure. 
The Romans no longer exposed themselves to the risk of a 
pitched battle in Italy, but fohowed Hannibal without accept- 
ing battle, harassed his stragglers, cut off his provisions, 
and thus gradually wore him down. Carthage, too, gave 
Hannibal insufficient support ; and this not only because the 
control of the seas lay on the whole with Rome, but because the 
Government was jealous of the great conqueror. Moreover, as 
the war went on, Rome produced a soldier capable of opposing 
Hannibal on more equal terms. Scipio the Great, soon to be 
called the conqueror of Africa, made his first important essays 
in war in Spain. He gradually destroyed the Carthaginian 
power there, and prepared an army for the death- wrestle with 
his great antagonist. 

Hannibal meanwhile, ever unchallenged in the field, was 
gradually losing his grip on Italy, and with him prestige was 
everything. The Romans were successful in a Hannibal 
series of sieges. Syracuse was retaken in 212, ^ Italy. 
Capua in 211, Tarentum in 209. Hannibal roamed about 
the south of Italy still unbeaten, still dangerous : in 208 he 
ambushed the consul Marcellus and defeated and slew him. 
But the Italian population saw that his star was setting, and 
reinforcements and provisions became more and more difficult 
to obtain. In 207 there came the really decisive battle of 
the war. His brother Hasdrabal was in command of the 



56 Outlines of European History 

Carthaginian forces in Spain. He outwitted Scipio, and brought 
his army over the Alps into Italy to the relief of his brother. 
If only the two armies could join, Hannibal might yet force his 
stubborn foe to surrender. But the consul Nero, by a dex- 
terous march, joined his colleague at the Metaurus River, and 
before Hannibal knew that his brother was in Italy he had 
been defeated and slain, after a very stubborn struggle. 
Without reinforcements, and with a dwindling prestige, Han- 
nibal could no longer hope for victory over Rome. But he 
remained in Italy for four years yet ; and the fact that the 
Romans still dare not attack him is eloquent testimony to the 
effect produced by his past triumphs. 

Scipio meanwhile, elated by his successes in Spain, proposed 
to the Senate to attack Carthage herself. The Senate hesi- 
The Roman tated, but Scipio was in the end allowed to go. 
invasion of He crossed to Africa in 204 ; the Carthaginians 
Africa. found it necessary to summon Hannibal home. 

He returned, and fought his last great battle at Zama in 202. 
Scipio triumphed, and Carthage surrendered. 

This wonderful war, in which unity, discipline, and states- 
manship had triumphed over transcendent military genius, left 
Rome the one great state in the Mediterranean lands. She was 
in no hurry to establish an empire. She did not annex the 
territory of Carthage, in Africa ; but Spain came under the 
" provincial " rule of Rome, as Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica had 
already done. "We will postpone an explanation of the Roman 
rule of the provinces until her empire has advanced somewhat 
further. 



The Roman Conquest of the Mediterranean Lands 57 

CHAPTER X 
The Roman Conquest of the Mediterranean Lands 

Battle of Cynoscephalae 197 B. C. 

Battle of Magnesia 190 B.C. 

Macedonia a Roman Province . . . , 148 B.C. 

Destruction of Carthage 146 B.C. 

If we cast a glance forward on the future of Rome, we may 
see what were the chief Unes of her development. After the 
fall of Carthage she had no really dangerous rival, and she 
was drawn, almost against her will, to assert her mastery over all 
the Mediterranean lands. Some she absorbed into her empire ; 
over all she asserted her suzerainty. And then, when the City 
of the Seven Hills had grown into a world-wide empire, the 
effects of these conquests on her domestic life began to show 
themselves. Her old republican constitution proved unequal 
to the strain of conquest, and an era of political change set in 
from which at last the empire emerged. 

Hardly had the Carthaginian danger passed when Rome 
found herself involved in troubles with the East. Since the 
days of Alexander, Greece and the East had under- Rome and 
gone great changes. His empire had broken up the East, 
into many fragments, of which the chief were Macedon, under 
King Philip ; Asia, or Syria, under King Antiochus, who called 
himself the King of Kings ; and Egypt, under the family of 
the Ptolemies. But besides these three great states there were 
many small ones. Asia Minor was a strange collection of 
small kingships, free cities, and half-barbarous tribes. Greece 
proper, too, had changed much in its poUtical character since 
the days of Demosthenes. Athens, Corinth, Thebes, and 
Sparta, though these cities still existed, were no longer the 
chief political influences in the country. The individual city- 
state was clearly unequal to a struggle with the new great 
powers that had risen up. The feature of the time was the 
rise of leagues. North of the Gulf of Corinth there was the 
Aetolian League, a confederacy of rude and warlike tribes and 



58 Outlines of European History 

cities, whicli held in awe the more civilized cities further east. 
But in the Peloponnese the Achaean League was a really noble 
development in Greek political life. Most of the states of the 
Peloponnese, and some outside of it, were by tills league joined 
together in a union which gave them strength to resist foreign 
aggression, and secured them self-government in their domestic 
concerns. But, in spite of the league, Macedonia was the 
really dominant military force in Greece, and controlled the 
country by means of its garrisons in carefully chosen sites and 
fortresses. 

The war with Macedonia grew out of the Carthaginian 
war. Philip, King of Macedonia, had made an alliance with 
War with Hannibal after the battle of Cannae, and Mace- 
Macedonia, donian soldiers had fought against Borne at the 
battle of Zama. Moreover, the position that Borne had won 
made her a natural umpire in all disputes among the Mediter- 
ranean nations. The King of Egypt complained that Kiug 
Philip and King Antiochus had agreed together for the par- 
tition of his dominions. So Borne determined to intervene, in 
the interests of peace and order in the East, not yet for selfish 
conquest. She formed an alliance with the Achaean League 
and various smaller states in the East, and in 198 sent over an 
army under Flamininus. 

For the first time, Roman troops appeared east of the 
Adriatic. But Bome had already learnt something of Greek 
Greece and literature, art, and culture, and there is no more 
Rome. potent influence in Bome's history than the art 

and thought of Greece which henceforward mastered the mind 
of Bome as completely as Bome mastered the soldiers and states- 
men of Greece. A later Boman poet said, " Captive Greece 
took captive her barbarian captor ; " and there is no instance in 
European history of the culture of one nation so profoundly 
dominating the mind and imagination of another. Hence- 
forward, whatever was native in Boman religion, art, or thought 
died down or fell into the background ; and Bome embraced 
all that was Greek in these domains, and transferred it to her 
own soil and language. The Boman enthusiasm for all things 
Greek had reached its zenith when Flamininus led his army 
across the Adriatic. 



The Roman Conquest of the Mediterranean Lands 59 

This event is memorable, not only in the history of 

culture, but also in the history of war ; for the phalanx and 

the Roman legion were brouojht into clear and de- tu 1 • ' 
. f . » The legion 

cisive comparison. Now, in a series of great and the 

battles, the close packed phalanx, with its bristling phalanx. 

hedgerow of long spears, came into conflict with the loose 

formation of the Eoman legionaries, armed with their short 

swords. The advantage, at first sight, lay wholly with the 

phalanx. The thin, loose line of the Romans could not 

possibly withstand the charge of the phalanx on ground that 

suited it ; and we have the word of a contemporary that the 

phalanx never charged without conquering. But the Romans 

were too skilful tacticians to accept battle on conditions that 

suited their opponents. They knew that battles were lost and 

won elsewhere than in the mere encounter of the lines. They 

lured the phalanx on to rough ground, they wearied it with 

long marches, they attacked its serried ranks with missile 

weapons, and in the end the legionary formation and the short 

sword justified themselves, and secured victory to Rome for 

four centuries more. 

Fiamininus beat King Philip at Cynoscephalae in Thessaly 
in 197. But the Romans were satisfied with this assertion of 
their superiority, and the chief result of the The freedom 
victory was that Fiamininus, amidst great en- of Greece, 
thusiasm, declared that henceforward Greece was free. It 
seemed to some men as though the Age of Pericles might 
return. 

But it was not so easy to settle the many problems of the 
East. The jealousies of Greece made her liberty unstable. The 
chief trouble came from the Aetolian League ; and that body, 
in fear of Roman vengeance, invited Antiochus of Syria to 
come to their help, and soon an Asiatic army landed in Greece. 
This was a direct attack on the system that Rome had estab- 
lished, and she felt obliged tg interfere. An army was despatched, 
under the command of Scipio, the conqueror of Africa, and his 
brother. The Asiatic troops were beaten out of Greece, and at 
Magnesia, in Asia Minor, the Syrian king's army was defeated 
with huge slaughter (190 B.C.). But still Rome refused to 
undertake the responsibility of governing any territory in the 



6o Outlines of European History 

East. She annexed no province ; but slie rearranged the 
frontiers and the relations of the states in Greece and in 
Asia Minor, and then again withdrew. 

It was nearly twenty years before she interfered again. It 
was the discontent of Greece and the ambition of Macedon 
The last which made a further interference necessary. The 

war with Greeks, and especially the Achaean League, desired 
Macedonia. ^ more real liberty than the supremacy of Rome 
allowed them. They joined themselves with Perseus, King of 
Macedon. In 171 the Romans had to recognize that war must 
come, but it was not until 168 that the decisive blow was struck. 
Then at Pydna the Macedonian phalanx and the Roman legion 
tried conclusions again. The Roman victory was complete ; 
and the phalanx disappears henceforth from mihtary history. 

But now the Romans were determined to make a settlement 
of the East which should have some chance of permanence; 
The Roman and it seemed that they could no longer avoid actual 
settlement of annexation. The enthusiastic and sentimental views 
the East. ^j^|^ which the Romans had at first regarded the 
East had quite disappeared now, and they had purely practical 
considerations in view in the arrangements which they made. 
Macedonia was at first divided into four separate republics, but 
the traditions of Macedonia were too great to allow her to accept 
so humble a position, and the Romans found that there was no 
halfway house between freedom and complete submission. In 
148 Macedonia became a Roman province, and was thus put 
under the direct rule of Roman officials. And the allies of 
Rome in the East, as well as her enemies, were roughly treated. 
She did not intend them to over-estimate the services they had 
rendered to Rome. The Achaean League, Pergamus and 
Rhodes, had, as a rule, been aUies of Rome during her con- 
quest of the East. But they had seen the supremacy of Rome 
with jealous dishke ; and each found its power and territory 
diminished in the hour of Rome's victory. The Achaean 
League was treated with especial rigour. It had been a very 
noble and promising experiment in federal government ; but 
Rome's chief political maxim was the sub-division of all possible 
rivals. The Achaean League was cut down in extent. Hos- 
tages for its good behaviour were taken to Italy ; and at last, 



The Roman Conquest of the Mediterranean Lands 6i 

in 146, war came against the league. Corinth was taken, 
plundered, and destroyed. Greece did not yet become a Roman 
province, but all real independence was taken away from her. 
Rome was clearly the paramount power in the East, and the 
kings of Syria and Egypt were liable to be dictated to by 
any overbearing pro-consul of the victorious republic. 

While Rome was conquering for herself the first place among 
the powers of the Eastern Mediterranean, she was also secur- 
ing her hold upon the AYest. Spain had been Roman con- 
organized into two provinces in 197; but the quest of the 
fierce population of that mountainous country "^^^t. 
had rebelled against the Roman yoke, and was only broken 
into subjection in a long series of wars. The tragic end 
of Carthage deserves a more definite notice. After the battle 
of Zama, Carthage was left without any serious army or navy, 
with diminished territory, and jealous neighbours supported by 
Rome. But her excellent situation and the energy of her 
citizens made her again a state of some importance for com- 
merce, if not for war. And it was commercial jealousy which 
inspired the Romans in their last attack upon her. It was 
Cato, a Roman of the old rigid type, who insisted on the danger 
that Carthage might yet be to Rome ; and when the Romans 
had, by their unjust demands, driven the Carthaginians to a 
war of self-preservation, it was to another Scipio that the task 
of extermination was entrusted. Carthage could not avoid her 
doom ; but she delayed it by heroic resistance. Something of 
the spirit of Hannibal seemed to have revived in Hasdruba], 
who conducted the defence, and for three years the defenders 
resisted both hunger and the assaults of the enemy. At last, 
in 14G, the great city fell. The vengeance of Rome was com- 
plete. The city was burnt to the ground, and the territory of 
Carthage became a province with the title of Africa. The con- 
queror, a descendant by adoption only of the victor of Zama, 
received the title of Scipio Africanus Minor. 

The Roman Empire now contained seven provinces, Sicily, 
Sardinia, and Corsica, Spain (two provinces), Illyricum, Mace- 
donia, and Africa. Their conquest had doubtless Roman 
flattered the ambition of the Romans, but it had provinces, 
been forced on Rome by the situation, and not desired by 



62 



Outlines of European History 



the Senate. Eome soon went on rapidly in her career of an- 
nexation, until all the lands adjoining the Mediterranean had 
been converted into Roman territory. In theory, Roman pro- 
vincial rule was nob harsh. Rome stepped into the position of 

the former government of 
the land annexed. The 
province was disarmed, for 
Rome undertook the re- 
sponsibility of defence. A 
Roman official, who was 
soon called pro-consul, or 
pro-praetor, assessed the 
tribute, commanded the 
armed force, and acted as 
a supreme court of justice. 
The local organization of 
the province, its customs, 
and its religion, were not 
in theory interfered with. 
But this fair appearance 
was far from corresponding 
in most cases to reahty. 
The Roman governor was 
absolute, and, in effect, 
irresponsible, for though 
the provincials could pro- 
secute him in Rome for 
oppression, the procedure was so costly, and the issue so 
uncertain, that it was rarely worth while to do so. The 
governor, moreover, was unpaid ; for it was the noble tradition 
of the Roman State that public service must be rendered 
gratuitously. But the result was that he used his absolute 
irresponsible power to pay himself, and the complaints of 
extortion were frequent, and the Romans themselves admitted 
that in many cases they were justified. 




Bust of Scipio Africanus Major (the 
conqueror of Hannibal). (See p. 56.) 



The Roman Revolution 6$ 

CHAPTER XI 
The Roman Revolution 

Tiberius Gracchus, Tribune 133 B.C. 

Caius Gracchus, Tribune 123 B.C. 

Rome was, in the middle of the second century, B.C., left 
without a rival in the Mediterranean lands : her further march 
from conquest to conquest seemed pre-destined, and was not 
attended with great military difficulty. But just about this 
time she entered on a series of internal difficulties, which in 
the end changed her constitution from a republic into an 
empire. It is necessary first to understand the causes of this 
great change. 

The constitution of Eome was the highest product of 
political wisdom that the world had seen. It was essentially 
conservative in its character. It was the result of ^ 
a long series of compromises and adaptations to tution of 
meet circumstances as they arose. Through all Rome in the 
chansres Rome was stiU in idea a city-state, and her second cen- 
constitution was a municipal constitution. The 
popular comitia, the consuls, and the praetors, the senate itself 
were originally intended for a small population, living within 
narrow limits, all regarding the same city as their home. But 
Rome was now an imperial state ; her citizens were to be found 
in all lands as traders, and her soldiers were constantly called 
on for distant expeditions. The constitutional machinery 
that served for a city-state, broke down when applied to an 
empire. To take a single instance : the consuls during their 
year of office were municipal magistrates, and also commanders 
of the armies of Rome. In the second capacity they might be 
called on to go to Spain or Asia or Africa ; and either their 
municipal or their mihtary duties were bound to suffer. And 
if the municipal republican machinery of Rome failed to govern 
an empire, what could take its place .'' Modern feeling would 
perhaps suggest some representative system ; but the idea of 
representation was unknown to the Romans, and it would 
probably not have supplied a sufficiently strong government. 



64 Outlines of European History 

After many experiments the only alternative appeared to be 
the rule of one man, or in other words an imperial monarchy. 

Social questions of a grave kind were at the same time 
pressing for solution. The Italians had at first been a people of 
The social Small farmers ; and it was this yeoman population 
question at that had won Italy for Rome, and fought down 
Rome. Hannibal. But now the agricultural character of 

Italy was changing, the small farmers were disappearing : great 
estates were taking their place. Two forces were chiefly 
answerable for this sad effect. As a result of Eomau con- 
quests corn was now brought cheaply to Eome from Sardinia 
and Corsica, from Africa and Egypt ; and the Italian farmer 
was ruined by the competition of this cheaper foreign corn. 
And, secondly, slavery of a new type was beginning to spread 
in Italy. There had always been slavery among the Romans 
as among the Greeks ; but early Roman slavery was domestic 
in character. The new type of slavery, which was largely 
borrowed from Carthage, was far more brutal and cruel. The 
slaves were treated as machines ; they worked chained in gangs ; 
they were housed at night in slave prisons (ergastida). In the 
presence of this new slavery, free labour tended to disappear. 
Where once there had been small farms, cornfields, and peasant 
farmers, there were soon to be found large estates devoted to 
pasture and cattle rearing, and tended by the labour of slaves. 
The dispossessed freemen found their way to Rome, where they 
formed a dangerous pauper and unemployed population. 

Nor was change confined to the sphere of politics and 
society. Rome was also passing through an important change 
The new in thought and feeling, and in religion. This 
thoug-htin change, which was doubtless in part a natural 
Rome. development, was very largely influenced by the 

contact with Greek ideas that her recent expansion had brought 
about. The effect which Greece exercised on the Romans was 
at first one of repulsion. To the Romans, with their narrow 
range of ideas, their rigid code of morals, their dislike of 
emotional display, their ceremonial and practical religion, Greece 
seemed at first the embodiment of all that they disliked — 
looseness in thought and conduct, untrustworthiness, and 
indiscipline. But that feeling soon passed : and the art and 



The Roman Revolution 65 

thonght, the literature and philosophy of Greece soon produced 
on Roman minds the effect that they have always produced 
on those who really learn to know them. The first mood of 
repulsion soon changed into one of unreasoning enthusiasm 
for everything Greek, and though that in its turn soon passed 
the influence of Greek ideas remained. There was much in all 
this new thought that was admirable and progressive, but it 
sapped the very foundations of the old Roman life. The great 
changes of the world begin in the minds of men, and this is 
as true of the Roman revolution as of any others. 

It was the social question that brought on the first move- 
ment in this long course of change. The spectacle of the 
pauper populace of Rome, the depopulation of Tiberius 
Italy, and the danger that was thus threatened to Gracchus, 
the military strength of Rome induced, in 133, Tiberius 
Gracchus to propose a remedial measure. He belonged to one 
of the oldest of Roman families, and his object was conserva- 
tive rather than revolutionary. He was elected tribune of the 
people, and proposed and carried a land law by which the 
public lands of Rome were to be divided in small holdings 
among the poorest citizens. The bill, and the method in 
which it was brought forward, roused the fear and anger of 
the senatorial government, and he was murdered in a riot by 
the hands of the senators themselves. The Romans believed 
that this was the first occasion on which blood had been shed 
in the civil disputes of the city : before those disputes were 
at an end, Roman blood would flow in a broad torrent. 

The work of Tiberius Gracchus was taken up by his brother 
Caius ten years later ; but, while Tiberius proposed one 
remedial measure, Caius proposed a whole series Caius 
which amounted to a revolution. There was a Gracchus, 
new land law ; cheap corn was to be given to the people ; 
foreign colonies were to be planted to relieve the overcrowding 
of Rome. And the method of introducing these changes was 
even more serious than the measures themselves. The position 
of authority which the aristocratic Senate had assumed was 
completely disregarded. Caius Gracchus called upon the people 
in their great assembly to exercise the functions of legislation 
and government -which were certainly theirs by constitutional 



66 Outlines of European History 

right. He thus inaugurated a great democratic movement, 
which did not die with his death. Two methods of govern- 
ment were for the next eighty years placed before Eome, govern- 
ment by the Senate, and government by the people. Rome 
oscillated between the two. Neither was found in the end 
practicable ; and the rule of one man proved to be the only 
solution of the dilemma. 

The question was not settled at last by votes or arguments. 
Another force, tbe force of the army, came with slowly iocreas- 
Thenew i^S pressure to influence the result. For Rome 
Roman was a military state, and was bound to remain so. 

army. jj^r dominions had been won by the sword, and 

must for a long time be held by the sword. And beyond 
her dominions were the barbarians (as the Romans called all 
peoples who were neither Roman nor G-reek), who, whether Gauls 
or Germans, Parthians or Persians, would force their way 
across the frontier as soon as Roman vigilance and discipliue 
failed. Against these dangers, internal and external, the 
Romans would require a large army, and would find it necessary 
to give to individuals large and almost independent commands. 
The relation of the political authorities at Rome to the army 
during this period when the state was tossed on the stormy 
waters of revolution, was a poiut of increasing and decisive 
importance. 



CHAPTER XII 

The Expansion of the Empire by Marius, Sulla, 
and Julius Caesar 

The Numidian War 112-106 B.C. 

Battle of Aquae Sextiae 102 B.C. 

The Social War 91-90 B.C. 

Mithridates fights against Rome . . 89-66 B.C. 

Julius Caesar goes to Gaul . . . . 58 B.C. 

Capture of Alesia 52 B.C. 

Great wars were not slow in coming. First in Numidia, a 
state over which Rome exercised a vague protectorate, there 
broke out a civil war into which Rome was drawn. The Romans 



Marius, Sulla, Julius Caesar 67 

received many humiliations. Their aristocratic generals were 
beaten and bribed. At last, in 106, it was brought to an end 
by a general of humble birth, Marius, who had -_ . 
been appointed to the command in defiance of the 
Senate's wishes by a direct vote of the people. He had been 
assisted by an aristocratic lieutenant, Sulla, who was destined 
to be his great, and at last his. successful rival. 

A far greater danger immediately afterwards claimed the 
energies of both men. The barbarians of the north, races 
called the Cimbrians and Teutons, of which some, ^.^e Cim- 
and perhaps all, were of German rather than Celtic brians and 
origin, had fallen upon the Roman frontiers with Teutons, 
the most terrible results. In 105 a Roman army that was 
defending the line of the Rhone had been swept away with a 
reputed loss of one hundred and thirty thousand men. Nor 
were other Roman armies and generals more successful. Had 
the barbarians marched at once upon Italy the danger would 
have been extreme. Fortunately for Rome they turned west- 
ward, and it was not until their hordes had visited Spain and 
the north of Gaul that they presented themselves again at the 
gates of the Alps. 

In the interval a popular vote had called upon Marius, the 
victor in the Numidian war, to deliver Rome from this new 
peril. He used the interval before the return of Marius de- 
the Cimbrians and Teutons in drilling his men, feats the 
accustoming them to toil, and restoring their dis- invaders, 
cipline to the high Roman standard. And as yet no barbarian 
force could hope to prevail against a Roman army, when well 
disciplined and well commanded. The enemy divided their 
forces. The Teutons tried to enter Italy from the west, while 
the Cimbrians passed round by the north of the Alps in order to 
strike at Italy through the eastern Alpine passes. Utter ruin 
fell upon them at both points ; Marius destroyed the Teutons 
at Aquae Sextiae (Aix) in 102, and then passing back into 
Italy, overwhelmed the Cimbri in the valleys of Piedmont in 
101. In both battles the barbarians are reported to have lost 
hundreds of thousands. Nearly five hundred years were to 
pass before Italy was again dangerously threatened by a bar- 
barian invasion. 



68 Outlines of European History 

But Marius deserves a place in Roman history nofc only 
because he saved the State in battle, but also because he had an 
Marius as a important influence on its political fortunes. His 
politician. appointment by the popular vote to the Numi- 
dian war had been a serious blow to the authority of the Senate, 
and it was six times repeated. In the year 100 he was consul 
for the sixth time. Roman history could show no snch instance 
of the prolonged tenure of the highest office. For six years 
Marius had ruled the Roman state. It seemed at the time the 
result of the capacity or the ambition of one man ; but as we 
look back at it, it is seen to be, in fact though not in name, the 
inauguration of the empire. The political machinery of the 
republic had been for six years set aside in favour of the per- 
sonal rule of a great and popular soldier. From this time 
onwards this was the usual, though irregular, government of 
Rome, until at last it became regularized and systematized as 
the empire. 

We must note, too, that the character of the Roman army 
was changing. ' Entrance into it had formerly been the privi- 
lege of Roman citizens of some property. This barrier was 
thrown down by Marius. The prospect of pay and plunder 
attracted the needy to his ranks ; and the mercenary and pro- 
fessional army thus created was the instrument whereby in the 
end the Roman republic was overthrown and the empire 
established. For the army came to be more and more divorced 
from citizenship ; its devotion was not to the constantly 
changing officials of the Roman state, but to its own general, 
to whom it looked for pay and plunder. 

A survey of the next fifty years will show us that there was 
plenty of fighting for this new army. There was a breatliing 
The Social space for some ten years, and then there came a 
War war of an ominous kind. The allies of Rome in 

(91-90 B.C.). Italy, that is the Italian communities which had in. 
the past been conquered by Rome, broke out into rebellion. We 
have seen that the devotion of these very allies had saved Rome 
from destruction in the time of Hannibal. Rome's political 
genius was shown nowhere more clearly than in her conciliatory 
treatment of them. Generosity had proved the best policy, and 
they were ready to merge their existence in that of Rome. But 



Marius, Sulla, Julius Caesar 69 

Rome's attitude to them had changed of late. She was not 
indeed a cruel mistress ; the grievanoes of the aUies did not 
amount to oppression. But the road to equality that, formerly 
seemed opening was now closed ; the officials of Rome offended 
the Italians by their contemptuous pride. And at the same 
time the ItaUans were conscious of their strength when they 
saw that they contributed the majority of the soldiers in the 
Roman armies. They had hoped for long that their grievances 
would find peaceful redress, and when that hope failed them 
they broke into rebelUon. The Roman armies were defeated ; 
to persist in the war would have brought utter ruin, and Rome 
had the good sense to yield. Citizenship was thrown open to 
the Italians, and soon all the free inhabitants of Italy were 
upon terms of political equality. But note that this vast 
increase of Roman citizens made the maintenance of the old 
republican forms still more difficult. How could more than a 
million Roman citizens gather together in a single public 
assembly ? This vast extension of the franchise made Roman 
*' liberty " a farce, and paved the way for the empire. 

While this civil war was blazing in Italy, the East was 
agitated by the designs of Mithridates, King of Pontus, a 
district in the north-east of Asia Minor. Rome 
had met no such dangerous opponent since Han- 
nibal ; but he does not deserve to be coupled with the great 
Carthaginian, for it was Roman corruption and the confusion 
of government which alone allowed Mithridates to appear 
strong. His armies overwhelmed Asia Minor and invaded 
Greece. The Roman hold upon the East seemed fatally 
loosened. But when the first danger from the social war was 
over, Sulla came out to Greece, and his military genius broke 
the Pontic armies in a brilliant campaign, and Mithridates was 
forced to sue for peace. But shortly after SuUa had returned 
to Rome the intrigues of Mithridates recommenced, and soon 
issued in war. All Asia Minor fell back into his hands, and 
again the confusions and revolutions of Roman government 
were his chief source of strength. Pompeius The triumph 
(Pompey the Great) was at length sent against ofPompey. 
him, backed by the whole might of Rome ; and it was at once 
plain that Asia could not yet produce any power which could 



70 



Outlines of European History 



cope with that of Eome. Mithridates fled to the Crimea and 
died there. The armies of Pompey passed victoriously into 
Armenia and into Syria. Asia, as far as the Euphrates, was 
organized afresh under the Roman power. Syria was declared 
a Roman province. The turn of Egypt would clearly come 
soon. Pompey returned in triumph in 62 B.C. 

It was upon the northern frontier that the arms of Rome 
were next required. In the year 59 Julius Caesar received the 

command of the province of 
Gaul, which then did not 
Julius Caesar extend far from 
in Gaul. the Mediterranean 
shore. He found the Roman 
] province threatened by an 
^p^ incursion of the Helvetii (or 
^^ Swiss) and the Suevi (or Ger- 
mans). It was a danger com- 
parable to that with which 
the Cimbri and Teutons had 
threatened Rome in the years 
105 to 100 B.C. Caesar defeated 
both Swiss and Germans, and 
then undertook the conquest 
of all Gaul up to the Rhine 
frontier. No Roman general 
had ever a more important 
^J task. The Gauls were a brave 

\^ and warlike people, but with- 

out any national cohesion. The 
rivalry between the different 
tribes was so great that it 
for Caesar to find allies in every district 
His armies passed victoriously, though not 




Julius Caesar. 
i^From a Bust in the British Museum.) 



was always possibl 
which he attacked. 

without fierce fighting, to the mouth of the Rhine and the 
Pyrenees. They even crossed the Rhine and showed their 
strength to the German tribes beyond. In 55, and again in 54, 
Caesar crossed over to Britain, impelled by a love of adventure 
&nd a desire to prevent the Britons from giving help to their 
kindred beyond the narrow seas. Upon his return he found 



The Completion of the Roman Revolution 71 

that the Gauls had gained from their disasters a stronger 
national feeling than they had before possessed, and, under 
their great leader Yercingetorix, had broken out into a deter- 
mined revolt. Caesar had to fight now as he had Last struggle 
never had to fight' before ; but his genius, acting of Gallic 
through Roman military science and discipline, lit>erty. 
carried the day at last. The heroic Yercingetorix was driven 
to surrender at Alesia in 52, and Caesar could then devote 
himself to the peaceful organization of his conquests. Notice 
how great were the results of these campaigns. They freed 
Rome for centuries from the fear of barbarian invasion ; they 
laid the foundation of the French language and the later 
French civilization ; and it was through them that Caesar was 
able to interfere with decisive effect in the domestic politics of 
Rome and lay the foundations of the Roman Empire. 



CHAPTER XIII 
The Completion of the Roman Revolution 

Sulla returns from the East 83 B.C. 

Death of Sulla , . . . 78 B.C. 

Conspiracy of Catiline 63 B. C. 

First Triumvirate ......... 60 B. C. 

Outbreak of Civil War . 49 B.C. 

Battle of Pharsalia 48 B.C. 

It is to the internal history of Rome that we must now turn, 
and we must survey in a few sentences fifty years of political 
unrest issuing in occasional spasms of revolution, yj^g nature 
There was a fierce conflict of rival ambitions, of the con- 
Great names appear in the struggle : Marius and ^ct. 
Sulla, Caesar, Crassus and Pompey. But the struggle did not 
depend upon the rivalries of individuals ; nor even upon the 
tenacity of the Senate, or the desire of the people for power. 
The old Roman Constitution no longer availed for the vastly 
increased citizen body and the world-wide empire. How was 
it to be adapted to the new task ? If the aristocracy of the 



72 Outlines of European History 

Senate were overthrown, could a democratic form of govern- 
ment be substituted ? We have seen how impossible that 
solution was. But it was not until half a century of conflicts 
and experiments that Eome acquiesced at last in the military 
monarchy which is called the empire. 

We must return to the year 100, when, victorious over the 
Northern barbarians, Marius returned to Rome. He was 
Marius as consul for the sixth time, and he aspired now to 
a Revoiu- a political career. But he seems to have possessed 
tionist. no talent for politics. He joined with two asso- 

ciates in bringing forward a democratic programme ; but 
when riots and street-fighting broke out as a result of his 
proposals, he was induced to desert his associates and assist 
the Senate in restoring order. His late colleagues were 
defeated, and perished ; the power of the Senate was re- 
established ; and Marius had completely ruined his political 
prospects. 

The State after this suffered from no great convulsion until 
the question of the demands of the allies brought Rome face to 
The Social ^^^^ ^^^^ ^ ^^^^ serious problem. We have already 
War, and Seen that Roman statesmanship was unequal to its 
its political solution ; and the Italians in the end gained their 
results. object by the sword. But during the struggle, the 

rivalry of Marius and Sulla blazed out into fierce civil war. 
Marius, as a politician, was trusted by no one, but he belonged 
to the democratic party, if to any ; Sulla was by origin and 
conviction a defender of the Senatorial and conservative cause. 
When the flames of the Italian war were dying down, there 
arose the question of the command in the great war against 
Mithridates. It was a command eagerly desired ; it was 
certain to bring, both to the commanders and the amies, 
glory, victory, and immense plunder. The possession of the 
prize was the occasion of a short but fierce civil war. Rome 
was captured by Sulla ; Marius fled for his life ; and the 
victor, though he left Rome in frightful confusion behind 
him, sailed at once for the East. We have already seen his 
victorious career there. 

Sulla's withdrawal left Rome in the hands of the demo- 
cratic party. Marius returned, and he found a colleague 



The Completion of the Roman Revolution 73 




politically much abler than himself, in Cinna. But Marias 

soon died. No permanent changes were introduced into the 

State. The return of Sulla's ever-victorious guHa's ab- 

army was the thought uppermost in every one's sence and 

mind, and when Cinna tried to lead an army to return. 

fight against Sulla, his troops mutinied and murdered him. 

When Sulla returned in 83, he found only disorganized forces 

to resist him. He crushed them 

easily, and punished his opponents 

with merciless cruelty. Marius had 

presided over one " reign of terror ; " 

and now, under the rule of Sulla, 

there was another and a worse one. 

The ferocity of Roman politics during 

this period is a striking contrast to 

the self-discipline and gravity that 

the Romans of an earlier period had 

been so proud to possess. 

When Sulla was the master of the 
Roman State, he took to himself the 
title of " Dictator for the making of 
laws and the reformation of the Com- 
monwealth," and he proceeded with great skill and energy so 
to alter the machinery of the State, that, as he hoped, the rule 
of the Senate might be re-established on foundations from 
which neither democratic violence nor the power of a great 
soldier should be able to dislodge it. With this end in view 
he almost destroyed the power of the Tribune of the People, 
he increased the number of officials in the State, he gave to 
the Senate a power over legislation which they had hitherto 
possessed in fact but not in theory. It was the work of a man 
of genius — one of the ablest men, whether for politics or war, 
that the Roman state ever produced: but the aim of these 
changes was party triumph, and personal vengeance ; they 
were little more than a measure of reaction which ran counter 
to all the tendencies of the times. The power of the people 
and of the army was too great to be checked by a mere paper 
constitution, and a few years after the death of Snlla (78), 
hardly a trace was left of his elaborate scheme of government. 



A coin of Mithridates, but 
the head is that of Alex- 
ander the Great, whose 
fame in the East was so" 
great that it was adopted 
as the symbol of Royalty. 



74 Outlines of European History 

Of the forces that thrust Eome forward to empke the 
military situation was the most important. After the death 
Piracy and of Sulla, the State exhibited all the symptoms of 
revolted decadence — disorder at home, disasters abroad, 

slaves. Most ominous of all, the slaves of Southern Italy 

broke out into a fierce and successful revolt, and the pirates 
of the Eastern Mediterranean formed themselves into some- 
thing like an organized power, that made traffic on the seas 
almost impossible. 

But Rome possessed a reserve of force more than equal to 
the combating of these dangers, Crassus defeated the slaves. 
Overthrow Pompey Crushed the pirates and carried the Eoman 
of Sulla's armies in triumph into the Far East. And 
constitution, meanwhile the constitution which Sulla had so 
carefully elaborated went utterly to pieces. Eome needed a 
strong centralized government to meet these pressing dangers, 
not a system of checks and balances in the interest of the Senate. 
The demand of the People for the restoration of its powers was 
backed by the ambitious army-chiefs, who found their career 
blocked by Sulla's conditions. No real resistance was made 
to their demand. This restored tribunate of the people was 
again a strong power in the State. It was upon the proposal 
of a tribune, and by a vote of the people, that Pompey was 
sent with almost monarchical power against the pirates, and 
against Mithridates. Those who could read the signs of the 
times might have seen that the rule of the Senatorial aris- 
tocracy was gone beyond all possibility of recall. Some re- 
garded the great powers given to Pompey as being in them- 
selves the establishment of monarchy. 

As the time approached when Pompey would return from 
the East, Eome was thrown into great excitement and confusion. 
The con- ^^ clearly had the power to play the part of Sulla, 
spiracyof to make himself dictator, or king, if he chose. 
CatiUne Would he SO choose ? The Senate and the popular 

(63 B.C.). party, though both had contributed to the rise of 
Pompey, regarded his return with equal alarm. These political 
fears, joined to economical troubles of the time and the ambitions 
of certain individuals, caused the outbreak of a strange move- 
ment, which is known as the conspiracy of Catiline. Its aim, 



The Completion of the Roman Revolution 75 

perhaps, was to establish a power in Eome, of a popular 
revolutionary nature, which should be able to hold Pompey 
in check on his return. But the movement was defeated, 
through the energy of Cicero, who dreamed still of a sena- 
torial republic rendered stable by the support of all the 
moneyed classes. So when Pompey came home there was 
neither military nor political organization to resist him. 

The monarchy (by whatever name) was in his grasp if he 
wished to have it. But he would not have it by revolutionary 
means. He was ambitious, but loyal to the State. Pompey's 
Power had been offered him, almost thrust upon character 
him in the past ; he would not grasp at it with ^"^ ^^"^s. 
personal violence now. So he dismissed his dreaded army, 
became a citizen among citizens, and relied on their gratitude 
for his further advance. He was soon undeceived. All 
parties were relieved when he dropped the sword from his 
hand. The Senate especially began to treat him as a sub- 
ordinate, refused his requests, and soon drove him into the 
ranks of its enemies. It was clear that if he were to rise to 
power again, he must find allies ; and in the year 60, he 
entered into an alliance with Crassus, the wealthiest man in 
Eome, and Julius Caesar, a prominent man on the democratic 
side ; they agreed to unite their forces for common action. 
This arrangement is known as the First Triumvirate. It was 
a personal and secret arrangement, suspected by The First 
contemporaries but not openly declared. Pompey Triumvirate, 
brought his immense military reputation and the enthusiasm 
of his disbanded soldiers ; Crassus brought his enormous 
wealth and considerable military and political experience : 
Julius Caesar had apparently less to give and more to get 
from the triumvirate. But he was the leader of the popular 
party ; his military and political genius, which was shortly to 
make him the leading figure in all Eoman history, could hardly 
be conjectured as yet ; but he was a tried soldier already, a 
skilful intriguer, an admirable speaker, and none could so 
certainly secure the support of the Eoman populace as he. 

The union of these three men was enough to control the 
State. Caasar was elected consul for the year 59. He intro- 
duced measures that secured for Pompey the recognition that 



76 Outlines of European History 

he desired ; and it was decided by a law (introduced by a 
tribune, Yatinius) that Caesar should receive the provincial 
command in Gaul on both sides of the Alps and lUyria, and 
that Pompey meanwhile should remain in Rome, and secure 
its subordination to the triumvirate. Some satisfaction for 
Orassus was to be found later. As a pledge of unity between 
the two chief members of the triumvirate, Pompey was to 
marry Caesar's daughter, Julia. 

We have already seen something of the military history of 
the period of the triumvirate. Caesar's command in Gaul was 
Rivalry be- extended from five to ten years, and before its end 
tween Caesar he had invaded Britain and Germany, and con- 
and Pompey. q^gred Gaul. But during the course of those ten 
years the bonds of the triumvirate were strained, and finally 
snapped. Pompey's wife, Julia, died. In 53, Crassns was 
defeated and slain by the Parthians in a campaign which he 
had claimed as his share in the triumvirate. And while 
Caesar went from triumph to triumph, Pompey displayed little 
skill and scored no great success in his management of Rome. 
His star paled, as Caesar's brightened into a fiery splendour. 
He looked round him for support against his former colleague, 
whom he now felt to be his rival, and he found support in the 
Senate. When the ninth year of Caesar's command arrived, 
Pompey had drawn closely to the side of the Senate, and as 
their representative was ready to resist the great miUtary 
power of Caesar. There was much diplomatic fencing before 
the outbreak of war, and when in January, 49, Caesar crossed 
the Rubicon and began the war, he was able to assume the 
role of a defender of the liberties of the people, and even 
of the constitution against the action of Pompey and the 
Senate. 

It was believed at Rome that Caesar stood little chance 
against the Senatorial armies commanded by Pompey. But 
nine years of victorious warfare had made Caesar's 
war tl^ legions a fighting force of wonderful discipline, 
Caesar rapidity, and efficiency. Caesar's orders were 

against obeyed without question by the whole army ; while 

Pompey. ^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^^ ^-^^^ ^1^^^^ ^^g perpetual friction be- 
tween Pompey and the Senatorial nobles. Caesar's personality 



The Completion of the Roman Revolution 77 

also counted for very much. His unsurpassed genius for politics 
and war, his power of inspiring confidence in his officers and 
his men, the reputation he had won in his Gallic campaigns, 
made him a unique figure. It was feared at first that he would 
use victory in the spirit of Sulla, and that the lives and 
property of all his opponents would be in danger. But Caesar 
was as conspicuous among all his rivals for generosity and 
clemency as he was for military skill. His troops were re- 
strained from plunder, he set his enemies free when they fell 
into his hands. In consequence there followed a great 
revulsion of feeling in Italy. The constant changes of eighty 
years had left little real devotion to republican ideals. The 
inhabitants of Italy were chiefly anxious for the security of 
their property ; and, once assured on this point, they soon 
transferred their favour from the Senate to Caesar. 

The campaign that followed was, almost without an 
exception, favourable to Caesar. Pompey, in spite of his 
early boasting, was unequal to making any re- The victory 
sistance in Italy ; and he fled to Epirus and the of Caesar. 
East, hoping that the memory of his former victories would 
suffice to rally a great army to his side. As soon as Caesar 
had made himself master of Italy, he turned west to secure 
Spain, and then passed over to Epirus in pursuit of Pompey. 
After the issue of the campaign had been for some little time 
doubtful, he utterly defeated Pompey in the great battle of 
Pharsalia in Thessaly (48 B.C.). Pompey fled from the battle, 
but was subsequently killed in Egypt, by those who thought to 
do Caesar a service. After Pompey's death the Senatorial party 
still held out in Africa, an(J was able to raise its head again in 
Spain. But in both places they were defeated, and after 45 
there was no open resistance made to Caesar in any part of the 
Roman world. 



78 Outlines of European History 

CHAPTER XIV 
The Establishment of the Roman Empire 

Assassination of Julius Caesar . . . . 44 B.C. 

Battle of Actium . 31 B.C. 

Death of Augustus 14 A. D. 

Julius Caesar is rightly regarded as the founder of the Eoman 
Empire, though its actaal constitution was in many ways dif- 
ferent from what he desired. His career was cut 
TuUus^Caesar ^^^^^^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ assassination ; but even in the short 
for the con- time that his power lasted, his marvellous activity 
stitutionof ^ud energy accomplished enough to allow us to 
the empire, understand what kind of machine of government he 
intended to replace the rule of the senatorial republic. The new 
personal monarchical power was to be openly proclaimed, though 
ihe actual title of the new power was not determined. The 
title of dictator was unpopular because of its association with 
Sulla, and Caesar thought it necessary to refuse the title of 
King. But it was clear that the government of Rome was 
henceforth to be centrahzed in the hands of a single person, 
and that the old balanced constitution of Eome was at an end. 
Many features of the old constitution were to remain, and 
were to be adapted to the new circumstances. The Senate, 
which had been for centuries the real Government of Rome, 
was to be enlarged to nine hundred members. It was to con- 
tain members drawn from ail parts of the Roman Empire, and 
was to become a representative and consultative council of the 
new ruler. He showed himself liberal to the provinces, ready 
to grant Roman citizenship to the provincials, and anxious to 
protect them from misgovernment. The popular assembhes of 
the people of Rome were destined to lose their former import- 
ance, but the city was to be well cared for, and to find in 
material prosperity a compensation for the loss of political 
power. 

The real importance of Julius Caesar's career is to be found, 
not in these transitory political measures, but in the fact that 



The Establishment of the Roman Empire 79 

with him the imperial system was inaugurated, which was 
destined to be, under all its many transformations, the most 
long-hved of all political institutions. For the . . . 
present the Roman republican traditions were of Julius 
too strong for it. Much of what was best and Caesar, and 
worst in Roman political life joined to oppose the ^^".^'^^'^ 
new regime. Caesar was assassinated (44 B.C.), and 
the Roman world was plunged again into a period of civil war. 



^^^^wll^H 


^^^^H '^'^^^^^^1 






, J 



Bust of Gains Octavius, afterwards Augustus. 
{From Row and Leigh's "History of Borne.") 

But the forces driving Rome towards monarchy were too strong 
to be resisted. First, the so-called " hberators " were defeated by 
a second triumvirate, consisting of Octavianus Caesar, Antony, 
and Lepidus, men who upheld the tradition of Caesarism. And 
then the history of the first triumvirate was to some extent 



8o 



Outlines of European History 



paralleled in the second. The weak Lepidus was thrust on one 
side. The real rivals were Mark Antony, an old soldier and 
The young supporter of Julius Caesar, and Octavianus Caesar, 
Augustus. afterwards to be known as the Emperor Augustus, 
the grand-nephew of Julius. It was thought at first that all 
the strength of the latter lay in his relationship to the mur- 
dered dictator, and that he could be used as a tool by abler 




The Forum, Rome. 
(Photo: Frith dc Son.) 
This is a view of the Forum as it was about 1880, taken from the slope of the Capitoline 
hill. The columns on the left of the picture belong to the Temple of Vespasian; 
then comes the triumphal arch of Seplimius Severus. The co umns on the right 
belong to the temple of Saturn, which was used as the Treasury of Home. 

men. But he soon proved more than a match for all rivals. 
He was no soldier, but he was a most dexterous intriguer, 
cautious and resolute, capable of eliciting the confidence of 
others while concealing his own designs. Boyish though he was 
in years and appearance, he defeated in the end his military 
and experienced rival. First, they agreed to portion the Roman 
world between them ; Mark Antony ruled the East from Egypt, 



The Establishment of the Roman Empire 8i 

while the young Caesar resided in Rome, and nob only governed 
the West, but soon became identified with the best traditions of 
Rome, while Antony seemed a corrupt Oriental despot, of a kind 
that Romans had always abhorred. When the open struggle 
came, in 31 B.C., Mark Antony was defeated by his subtle 
rival at Actium, and fled to his death at Alexandria. 

The young Caesar, whom we will henceforth call Augustus, 
ruled now without 
question. There was a 
great contrast between 
him and his greater 
namesake and relative. 
Julius is direct in his 
action and his thought ; 
ready for change ; open 
in the declaration of his general 
aims. But Augustus is subtle and 
politic, a master of ^^^^^^^^ 
dissimulation, anxious between 
to retain as much as Julius and 

possible of the forms Augustus. 

of the past, indirect in his methods, 
insinuating himself into power 
rather than seizing upon it. The 
Roman Empire never quite lost 
the traces of the constitution he 
gave to it, and it is therefore 
necessary to mark its general fea- 
tures. 

Its chief feature was that the ^*^*^' ^VtSn.'^ '"^ *^' 
new imperial regime was presented 

as the continuation of the republic. Augustus took to 
himself no absolutely new title. He was neither "dictator" 
nor " king ; " he was only " princeps," the chief -.. <, . _ 
man in the state. His name of Augustus was a gustan " 
title of veneration drawn from the language of settlement of 
religion, not a title of office. The whole machinery *^^ empire, 
of the old constitution subsisted still in name. The state was still 
in name a republic ; its government was still in name vested in 

G 




82 Outlines of European History 

the Senate and people of Rome. Augustus loved to appear only 
as the chief magistrate of the State ; as one into whose un- 
willing hands the Senate and people had thrust great powers, 
which he was anxious in due time to lay down again. In his 
home on the Palatine Hill, in the streets of Eome, in the meet- 
ings of the Senate, he assumed the pose of a citizen whom his 
fellow citizens had delighted to honour. He avoided with great 
care all the trappings and ceremony of despotism. The position 
and power of the Senate seemed rather increased than diminished; 
it had in its hands the direct government of half the provinces, 
while the emperor controlled the rest. But none the less, 
Augustus was really master of the Eoman world, and his power 
rested on a military basis. None was allowed to share with him 
the control of the army. During the next three centuries we 
may see the pretence of republican forms gradually abandoned, 
until in the end the empire appears as a military despotism of 
the Oriental type — the very type of government which Augustus 
had so carefully avoided. 

Thus the empire was founded. Let us consider for a 
moment its place in general European history. It stands at 
the very centre of European development : all 
the^Roman* earlier history leads up to it ; all later history 
Empire in is developed from it. Certain great consequences 
European j^^y be traced to its establishment. First, it gave 
^^ °^' immense relief to the Roman provinces, which had 

of late been terribly misgoverned. The individual members 
of the Senate had an interest in perpetuating that misgovern- 
ment. The new permanent ruler of the whole empire had no 
such interest. Misgovernment was still heard of, but, on the 
whole, a muchbetter era for the provinces noW dawned. Secondly, 
the empire brought peace to the Roman world. It is unques- 
tioned that the countries covered by the Roman Empire have 
never enjoyed so profound a period of peace as they did 
between 31 B.C. and 180 a.d. The rare wars of that period 
were, most of them, fought beyond the frontiers of the empire. 
The great central provinces of the empire enjoyed almost 
unbroken peace. Thirdly, the stability and peace which the 
Roman Empire gave allowed the language and the law, the 
culture and the ideas of Rome, to sink into the conquered 



The Establishment of the Roman Empire 83 

provinces. Both in the East and West, but especially in the West, 
they assimilated Roman civilization with marvellous rapidity. 
They ceased to feel that they were conquered by Rome ; they 
were rather incorporated in her ; and when at last the empire 
broke up, the provinces viewed the separation with regret. 
Fourthly, and lastly, the establishment of the Roman Empire 
stands in close relation to the growth and victory of the Chris- 
tian Church. The universal State had come, and seemed to 
require a universal religion. The two centuries of peace allowed 
men's minds to turn away from military ideals, and to realize 
the strength of the bonds which unite the whole human family. 
The security of the roads, the ease of transit, the common 
language, all facilitated the spread of a common religion, to 
which pagan thought approximated in some important points. 
When the Church began to organize its government, it followed 
very closely the political organization of the empire. The Chris- 
tian Church could not have developed as it did without the 
protecting envelope of the imperial government. 

For the Eoman Empire Mommsen's History is no longer available 
as it ends with Julius Caesar ; but his History of the Roman Provinces 
under the Empire is useful. MerivaWs History of the Bomans under 
the Empire carries the story down to the death of Marcus Aurelius. 
Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire then becomes the 
great work on the subject. (The best edition is that annotated by 
Professor Bury, published by Methuen.) Dr. Hodgkin's Italy and her 
Invaders takes up the story of Italy in the third century, and carries 
it on to the ninth. The Ecclesiastical Histories of Milman and Robert- 
son begin to be of great value. Smaller histories are The Student's 
Roman Empire by Professor Bury and The Student's Gibbon. Professor 
DilVs Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius, and Roman Society 
in the Last Century of the Western Empire are invaluable for the social 
and religious history of the time. 

Valuable illustrations can be drawn from classical literature, 
especially from Pliny's Letters, Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, the 
writings of Lucian. Robinson's Readings in Eu7-opean History are of 
use from the second century onwards. 

Some historical atlas is necessary. One of the completest is 
Droy sen's Histmischer Hand- Atlas. The Album Historique, by Lavisse 
and Parmentier (4 vols.) gives thousands of illustrations of costume, 
armour, architecture, etc. 



84 



Outlines of European History 




The Early Roman Emperors S5 



CHAPTER XV 
The Early Roman Emperors 

Varus defeated in Germany 9 A. D. 

Overthrow of Nero 68 A. D. 

Vespasian Emperor 69 A. D. 

The Roman Empire was, as a rule, a pacific and non-aggressive 
state, but during the rule of Augustus certain additions were 
made to Roman territory, chiefly for strategical The con- 
purposes, in order to gain a scientific and defen- quests of 
sible frontier. Upon the north the frontier was to Augustus, 
consist of the Rhine and the Danube, and it was necessary, in 
order to bring the Roman dominions up to these rivers, to 
conquer the Alpine lands. This task, which so many invaders 
in a later age have found an impossible one, was accomplished 
without much effort, for the people had no strong national 
sentiment, and their armies were easily beaten down. There 
was at one time an idea of pushing the Roman frontier still 
further north and east, and making the Elbe and the Danube 
the frontier of the empire. Had such a policy been successful, 
Rome would have had a more easily defensible frontier, and 
Germany would have been brought under the influence of 
Rome. But, after great early successes, the Roman efforts 
ended in a great disaster. A Roman general, Yarns, with a 
considerable army was defeated in 9 A.D., and though the 
conquest of Germany was again attempted, it was in the end 
abandoned, and the Rhine and the Danube remained as before 
the frontier line of Rome on the north. 

If we follow the frontier line on the map, we see it taking 
in all Asia Minor and extending as far as the Euphrates, so as 
to embrace all Syria. Thence it cuts along the The frontiers 
north coast of Africa, embracing all Egypt and of the Roman 
the fertile district along the north of Africa. Empire. 
Westward the Roman Empire was, in the days of Augustus, 
bounded by the Atlantic and the Bay of Biscay. The Roman 
dominions thus possessed excellent frontiers, and the "bar- 
barian " races beyond were in no case organized or efficient 



86 Outlines of European History 

states. It was possible, therefore, to defend these vast dominions 
with, comparatively, a very small army. It is reckoned that 
there were not more than four hundred thousand soldiers in 
all in the empire, and those for the most part were stationed 
at or near the frontier. 

The empire rested on a military basis, and Augustus knew 
it. But he knew, too, the strength of public opinion and 
the importance of religion, and he was an-xious 
tionof^" ^^ bring both forces to the support of his 
Augustus system. He acted upon public opinion through 
to literature i}^q medium of Latin literature, which now reached 

reigion. .^.^ zenith. Yirgil, Horace, Ovid, and Livy 
all belong to his reign, and all adopted a tone favourable to 
the house of Augustus and the regime that he had established. 
Eeligion, too, came to his support. Under Augustus there 
was a real, if superficial, revival of religion. New temples 
were built, and old ones were restored. Religion became 
fashionable. Yirgil's poem, the " Aeneid," is throughout re- 
ligious in tone, and bears testimony to the watchful care with 
which the gods had planned the foundation of Eome. Even 
Horace and Ovid were induced to lend support to the new 
movement, and there can be no doubt that this union between 
the empire and religious sentiment was of service to both. 
But the chief religious innovation of the time was the gradual 
growth of the practice of the worship of the emperors, living or 
deceased — Oaesar-worship as it is usually called. This move- 
ment was spontaneous in its origin, and spread rapidly over the 
face of the empire. It does not correspond to much that our 
age calls religion or worship ; it was little more than an ex- 
pression of reverence and gratitude to the empire, and it 
doubtless had a great effect in securing the loyalty of the 
population. 

The Roman Empire was, we have insisted, an inevitable 
change In the constitution, bringing peace and adding to the 
The draw- prosperity of the dominions of Rome. But it 
backs to the suffered from the first from serious drawbacks. 
Roman The fiction that the republican constitution was 

Empire. g|.-|2 maintained proved a source of irritation in 

the long run, for the Senate desired to regain something of its 



The Early Roman Emperors 



S7 



old power, and was not content with the position of subordina- 
tion which belonged to it under the empire. No regulation, 
moreover, could be made as to the succession while the pretence 
was kept up that the princeps or emperor was only an officer 
of the republic. When therefore the tact and discretion of 
Augustus were no longer found in the emperors, the old 
repubhcan aspirations revived, and caused constant irritation 
and trouble. The position, too, which the emperor held was 
one very dangerous to the moral character. Never has a man 
been placed on so high a pinnacle of power as these Eoman 
emperors. They were 
absolute masters of 
the civilized world. 
They had no rival 
powers to hold them 
in check ; they were 
surrounded by flattery 
of the basest kind ; a 
thousand altars were 
erected in their 
honour. At the same 
time they had no 
traditions to fall back 
upon. The traditional 
morality of Eome was 
against such a position 
as theirs. No wonder 
then that^ what has 
been called " the dizziness of supreme power " fell upon them, 
and that they exhibited often an egotism that bordered on 
madness, and that the palace history of the early Eoman 
Emperors is full of scandals and tragedies. Yet it is easy 
to pay too much attention to the domestic history of the 
emperors. The stories of their lives often come to us from 
poisoned sources, and are perhaps the work of malevolent 
gossip. Even during the reigns of the worst of them the 
imperial machine worked on, and for a long time the peace and 
order of the empire were unbroken. 

Tiberius, who succeeded Augustus, was a vigorous soldier 




Tiberius. 

(From a Bust in the British Museum ; but it is doubt- 
ful whether this is really a portrait of the Emperor.) 



88 



Outlines of European History 



and ruler, but his latter years were passed in retiremeut at 
Capreae, and clouded by rumours of suspicion and cruelty. 
The first Caligula, who came next, after a short period of 
early em- good rule, seems to have been afflicted with 
perors. madness. He claimed divine honours, and took 

a pleasure in degrading the Senate and officials of Rome. 
Claudius was a scholar and a ruler of good and liberal ideas ; 
but in his own house he was the tool of women and men of 
servile origin. Upon his death Nero was raised to the imperial 

power by the intrigues of his 
mother. At first he ruled well 
and Uberally ; but on attain- 
ing to full manhood his vices 
and crimes disgraced the im- 
perial position as even Cali- 
gula had not disgraced it. 
He indulged in vast building 
schemes, and he heavily taxed 
Rome to provide the expense. 
He claimed to be a great 
siuger, athlete, and artist, and 
the flattery of Rome allowed 
his claims. Rome could be 
mocked and plundered with 
impunity ; but Nero went so 
far as to offend the armies, 
and then he was overthrown by a military revolution. 

The empire was military in its origin, and rested upon the 
support of the army. In addition to the legions that guarded 
The military the frontiers, there was a considerable body of 
revolution of troops (the Praetorian Guards) quartered at the 
69A.D. gixtes of Rome for the defence of the emperor 

himself, and to keep gaard over the order of Rome. These 
guards were selected with special care and received higher pay 
than the ordinary troops, and hitherto had seemed to be a 
trustworthy support. But Nero's extravagance, the reports of 
his corrupt and cruel life, the disgust of the soldiers at their 
army chief's artistic ambition, and some failure in the 
machinery of provincial government due to a succession of 




Nero. 
{From thA Bust in the British Museum.) 



The Early Roman Emperors 



89 



weak emperors, now caused a series of military risings in 
various parts of the empire. For nearly two years the peace of 
the provinces was rudely shaken. One army after another 
declared its commander emperor and marched, or attempted to 
march, on Italy. First the legions of Spain, Gaul, and Ger- 
many began to move, but before that movement came to a 
head the Praetorian Guard at Rome declared against Nero. 








Vespasian. 
{From the 3Iarhle Bust in the Capitoline Museum.') 



Energy and courage might very likely have saved him, but he 
had neither. He fled from Rome, and, on the report of the 
approach of the enemy, committed suicide. The Praetorians 
declared for Galba, an old man of severe and simple life, who 
had formerly been Governor of Spain, and with their help he 
became master of Rome. But they soon wearied of his 
economy and his virtues ; and when Otho, a Roman noble of 
luxurious habits and great wealth, made overtures to them, 



90 Outlines of European History 

they readily transferred their allegiance to him. Galba was 
murdered, and Otho reigned in his stead. 

The spectacle of these revolutions had now aroused all the 
legions of the empire. Each section of the army saw a chance 
Vespasian of winning the purple for their commander and 
seizes the plunder for themselves. First, the legions of 
empire. ^\^q German frontier declared for Yitellius, a 

pleasure-loving and voluptuous man, and prepared to march on 
Rome. The Praetorians by themselves were unequal to meet- 
ing the German army, and they summoned the Danubian 
legions to their help. The decisive battle was fought at 
Bedriacum, and the German legions won. Vitellius occupied 
Rome, and Italy, which had enjoyed a profound peace for 
nearly one hundred years, was again plundered and harried. 
But the end was not yet. In Judaea, Yespasian commanded 
the Syrian Army, which was occupied in the siege of Jerusalem, 
and his soldiers, jealous of the German legions, called upon him 
to assume the purple and march on Rome. He marched and 
conquered, but not until a fierce battle had been fought at 
Cremona. Each successive wave had conquered the preceding 
one, Vespasian's was the last, and with him a new era in 
Roman history began. 

The risings of these two years were military and not 
national in character. Their motive was usually envy, rivalry, 
Character ^r greed. There is no trace in them of provincial 
of the aspirations towards freedom. It is noticeable, too. 

Revolution. ^]^^^ j^^ ^]^q ItaUans the armies seemed to be com- 
posed of foreigners. The. soldiers were no longer Italians or 
even Romanized provincials. Rome was drawing her armies 
from the rougher provincial populations, and even from the 
barbarians beyond the frontier. We shall recur to this fact 
when we are considering the fall of the empire. 



The Age of the Antonines 91 



CHAPTER XVI 
The Age of the Antonines (96-180 A.D.) 

Trajan, Emperor 98-117 A.D. 

Marcus Aurelius, Emperor . -. . 161-180 A.D. 

"We have said that with the accession of Yespasian a new era 
for the empire begins. The early emperors had all of them 
been of noble Eoman birth, and looked at things character of 
from the standpoint of an aristocrat of the city of the empire 
Rome. But Yespasian was of Italian, not of Roman, after Ves- 
origin. There was nothing of the aristocrat about P^^^^"- 
his appearance or his character, and the traditions of the city of 
Rome carried no weight with him. From this time onwards 
the imperial power never rests with the old Roman families. 
The Roman Empire ceases to be in any sense governed by the 
city of Rome. First Italians succeed to the purple, and then 
soon afterwards men of provincial origin. Spaniards, Africans, 
Syrians, Pannonians, hold in turn the imperial power ; but Rome, 
which had conquered the world, finds herself, by her very con- 
quest, excluded from power. The new men brought to the task 
of government a wider and more liberal outlook. "With Yes- 
pasian the best age of the empire begins. His reign saw one 
fierce war — the reduction of Judaea, which was only completed 
when his son Titus captured the city of Jerusalem and destroyed, 
so far as it was destructible, the Jewish nationaUty, and laid 
waste the Holy City. The destruction of Jerusalem has a vast 
importance in the history of religion ; but the war was never of 
doubtful issue, and did not shake in any way the stability of the 
imperial system. The rest of Yespasian's reign was occupied 
with the restoration of the finances and prosperity of the empire, 
which had been seriously damaged by the late spasm of revolu- 
tion, and before he died his task was accomplished. He was 
succeeded by his son Titus, and he, after a very short reign, by 
his brother Domitian. The reign of Domitian, however, recalls 
the worst excesses of the early empire, and goes far to show 



92 Outlines of European History 

that the cruelty and vice which are ascribed to them were 
not the result of madness or of a radically vicious temperament, 
but were largely due to the influence of the imperial position 
itself. Domitian's reign followed what may be called the 




The Arch of Titus, Eome. 
{From Guhl und Koner's " Lelen der Griechen und Edmer.") 
This arch was erected to commemorate the capture of Jerusalem by Titus. On Jbo 
sculptured Blabs under the archway a procession is represented carrying in triumph 
the eeren-branched candlestick and other sacred vessels of the Jews. 

normal course : early promise of good rule, great expenses, 
oppressive measures in order to meet them, conspiracies 
answered by repressive cruelties, and at last a conspiracy 
that succeeded. 



The Age of the Antonines 93 

But at his death the better tendencies of the time reasserted 
themselves, and the next ninety years may be regarded as the 
Golden Age of the empire. The reigns of five jhe Golden 
emperors fill up this period: Nerva, Trajan, Age of the 
Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius. empire. 
Only the last two are, strictly speaking, " Antonines," but 
so great was the honour in which they were held that the 
name has been adopted for the whole group, and the period 
is usually spoken of as the " Age of the Antonines." It is of 
great importance that the main features of this period should 
be understood. 

Many of the constitutional difficulties of the earlier empire 
seemed overcome. "We have already seen how serious had been 
the difficulties arising out of the question of the p. . 
succession. There was not, and there could hardly istics of the 
be, any definite law of succession. The matter had, rule of the 
as a rule, been decided partly by connection of birth ^^^o^^^es. 
with the last emperor, partly by the support of the Senate, and 
often by intrigue, and often by violence. During the Age of 
the Antonines there was no rule laid down, but in practice each 
emperor chose as his successor some public servant who seemed 
capable of bearing the burden of rule ; he adopted him as his 
son, and bestowed upon him such honours as clearly announced 
his right to succeed. The system worked admirably and gave 
to the empire an unparalleled series of devoted and efficient 
rulers. 

The relations between the empire and the Senate had 
been another source of difficulty in the early empire. It 
would be untrue to say that all difficulties were over ; but 
as a rule the Senate was treated with tact and considera- 
tion by the emperors, and accepted its position as the 
emperor's consultative council and a subordinate agency of 
government. 

Another feature of the empire about this time (though by 
no means confined to the Age of the Antonines) is the vast 
development of municipal government within the Roman 
Empire. The civilization of the classical world was a city 
civilization ; and never was there such a number of flourish- 
ing and self-governed cities as during the second century of 



94 



Outlines of European History 



the Cbristian era. The Koman Empire encouraged them 

everywhere ; their government followed the lines of the 

Municipal former government of the city of Rome ; the chief 

government magistrates were called duumviri^ the town council 

in the Roman if^as in the hands of the decurions. Inscriptions and 

inpire. remains show us how vigorous and prosperous this 

municipal life was throughout the empire. The walls of 

Pompeii were covered with election placards at the time of 

its destruction. Both the splendour and the fall of the empire 

are closely connected with its municipal history. 

Peace had all along been a characteristic of the empire, 

but it was most profound 

during the Age of the Anto- 

nines. Traian 

Peace. •' ^ 

was a great 

soldier, but his fighting was 
almost entirely beyond the 
frontiers. The reigns of 
Hadrian and Antoninus 
Pius are devoid of impor- 
tant military history. And 
yet the armies of Eome were 
all along kept in a high con- 
dition of efficiency. 

The age, too, was becom- 
ing far more humane. The 
Humane old harsh, unsym- 
legisiation. pathetic Eoman 
spirit was cast aside, and we 
have from these Antonine 
emperors a series of enactments in favour of slaves, in favour 
of orphans, and the poor. This humanitarian legislation was 
partly a spontaneous growth in an era of peace, but it is 
especially associated with the Stoic philosophy which was be- 
coming a great power with the most cultured classes at 
Rome. 

Thus the Age of the Antonines is a period of wonderful 
attractiveness. The great historian Gibbon has declared it to 
be " the period during which the condition of the human 




Antoninus Pius. 
'{From the Bust in the British Museum.) 
>. ; emperor, 138-161 a.d. 



Born. 



The Age of the Antonines 95 

race was most happy and prosperous." But it was a transi- 
tory phase, an " autumn summer " before one of the most 
wintry periods that the history of Europe has known. 
The causes of the great decline of the third The war of 
century will be considered later. Meanwhile we philosophies 
may notice that the peace which characterized ^"^ ^^ igions. 
the age did not extend to thought and religion. In that 
domain there were fierce disputes — philosophy clashed with 
philosophy and religion with religion. The Christian 
Church was slowly working its way to victory from amidst 




Trajan. 

{From the Bust in the British Museum.) 

Born, 52 A.D. ; emperor, 98-117 a.d. 

a confusion of divisions and heresies that bitterly opposed 
one another. 

"We must note now the chief events of the Age of the 
Antonines. Trajan (98-117) is usually counted the greatest 
of them. He was an excellent ruler, but his name is specially 
associated with war. He crossed the Danube and conquered 
the district of Dacia, rich in mineral wealth, and converted it 
into a province. Later he struck against the Parthian power 
which lay beyond the Euphrates, and had for long been the 
most dangerous neighbour of Rome. The Eoman legions 



96 



Outlines of European History 



triamphed at every point, and the lands beyond the Euphrates 
were brought under Roman provincial sway. Hadrian (117- 
138), who succeeded, is really the most typical of the Antonines. 
He abandoned Trajan's conquests beyond the Danube, but 




Hadrian. 

(^F)-om the Statue in the British Museum.y 
Born, 76 A.D. ; emperor, 117-138 a.d. 

retained Dacia. His reign was largely occupied in travel 
through the provinces, during which he paid careful attention 
to their condition and finances. His whole reign was devoted 
to the welfare of the empire. He and Trajan were both of 



The Age of the Antonines 



91 



Spanisli origin, and during their reigns the provinces were 
placed almost completely on an equality with Italy. But the 
most important event of Hadrian's reign was the Qr af f 
creation of a regular civil service for the adminis- a reg-ular 
tration of the empire. The pretence that the old civil service, 
republic was maintained had hitherto prevented this being done, 
and the government of the empire had been entrusted to the 
personal servants of the emperor, men usually of a slave origin, 
and often possessing the vices of slaves. But Hadrian organized 
a civil service in which men of good birth could find honourable 
employment. Soon it covered the 
empire with a vast network of 
officials. It ended by being an 
intolerable burden to the State ; 
but that was only the corruption of 
a good institution. In the earlier 
period it was an agency at once 
efficient and beneficial. In the reign 
of Marcus Aurelius, the Marcus 
last of the " Antonines," Aurelius 
the long calm of the (i6i-i8o). 
empire broke up. The barbarians 
forced their way across the northern 
frontier, and though they were 
defeated and driven back, the old 
feeling of security was not quite 
restored. One great interest of the 
reign of Marcus lies in the philo- 
sophic character of the emperor. 
He was a Stoic. Stoicism, like all the philosophical systems 
of the Romans, was of Greek origin, but it had been eagerly 
accepted by the Eomans, and, somewhat modified from its 
early form, had become the real religion of the cultured 
classes of Rome. The Stoics held that there was a beneficent 
will which guided the affairs of the world, and that it was 
the highest duty of man to co-operate with this Divine 
will ; they preached a sense of human brotherhood ; they held 
that the will of man was, or could be made, independent of 
circumstances ; and that an unruffled calm was the highest 




Marcus Aurelius. 

{From the Bust in the British 
Museum.^ 

Born, 121 A.D. ; emperor, 161-180 a.©. 

This bust represents Marcus Aurelius 
in priestly costume. 



98 Outlines of European History 

good that man could attain to. There was much that was 
harsh and crude iu their doctrines at first ; but in the hands 
of Marcus it became a very noble and elevating creed. His 
so-called "meditations "—stray thoughts jotted down and 
collected after his death— form the most attractive manual of 
the Stoic faith. He was still nominally a supporter of the 
Pagan gods, but a consideration of his career will show us how 
great a change was coming over the thought and spirit of the 
Roman world. 



CHAPTER XVII 
The Great Decline in the Empire 

Septimius Severus, Emperor .... 193 A.D. 
Death of Alexander Severus .... 235 A.D. 

The death of Marcus Aurelius marks a great crisis in the 
history of the empire. The long and splendid calm was over, 
The crisis in and the empire now drifted into a period of con- 
the empire fusion, civil and foreign war, and revolution, out 
and its causes, ^f -^lijch it emerged still bearing the same name, 
but governed in a widely different spirit, inspired by different 
religious ideas, and struggling on less than equal terms with 
the surrounding barbarian races. It is important to examine 
the causes of this disastrous alteration. It may be that some 
escape our analysis, but certain outstanding features are plain. 
We may note that the *' constitutional settlement of the 
Antonines " — its arrangement of the succession and its 
No constitu- friendliness with the Senate — rested on no assured 
tionai settle- basis. It was merely the tradition of five reigns, 
™^°^* and, on the death of Marcus Aurelius, it was 

rudely interrupted. Marcus did not adopt the fittest of the 
servants of the empire to succeed him, but allowed his un- 
worthy son Commodus to do so. He was an idle, passionate, 
self-indulgent man of the type of Caligula or Domitian. The 
crimes and cruelties that had disgraced the earlier period were 



The Great Decline in the Empire 99 

renewed, and led in the end to his assassination. The fine 
tradition of the Antonines was never re-established. 

Some stress, too, may be laid on a terrible plague that 
afflicted the empire during the reign of Marcus. The legions 
were more than decimated by it, and it seriously 
weakened the defences of the empire ; but its 
effects must have been transitory, and the decline in the 
empire was permanent. The plague cannot have been the 
real cause of that decline. 

More important and more deep-reaching causes of the 
change can, without difficulty, be discovered. The empire was 
an absolute and non-free form of government, and Effects of 
shows the instability which usually belongs to absolutism, 
despotic rule. The central government of the empire had 
always been absolute ; but full municipal liberty had been 
found in the countless cities of the empire. From the best 
intentions the Antonines had begun to interfere with the self- 
government of the cities, to prevent what seemed to be financial 
mismanagement or oppression ; and before the end of the third 
century a.d. the cities, which had once been the refuge of 
hberty, had become centres of despotism which reproduced the 
features of the central government. This loss of municipal 
liberty took away from the provinces all elasticity and initiative, 
and at last handed them over as a helpless prey to an invading 
enemy as soon as the legions failed to protect them. 

Note, too, that the military situation was becoming more 
difficult. The so-called "barbarians" were a far more 
dangerous enemy than they had once been. Their -p^e change 
sons had served by tens of thousands in the in the bar- 
Eoman armies, and they carried back to their own Parian forces, 
countrymen a knowledge of Roman discipline and Roman 
military methods. It was for the present the German tribes 
upon the upper course of the Rhine and Danube which gave 
most trouble ; but soon, on the lower Danube, the different 
tribes of the Goths attacked with deadly effect ; while beyond 
the Euphrates, the Parthians, whom Trajan had so easily de- 
feated, were reorganized by the new Sassanid monarchy, and, 
inspired by a revived religious zeal, showed themselves 
extremely dangerous to the empire. But we must be careful 



loo Outlines of European History 

not to exaggerate the strength of the barbarians and the 
weakness of the Romans. It was two centuries after the 
death of Marcus Aurelius before the barbarian armies showed 
a decisive superiority over the Romans. 

The most important cause of change in the fortunes of the 
Roman Empire has yet to be mentioned. It is to be found 
The influence ^^ ^^^^ growth of the Christian Church. The 
ofChristi- Church had been for a century and a half in 
anity. the Roman world, and between the Church and 

the Roman Empire there was an inevitable antagonism. They 
were rival powers ; both claimed the whole obedience of a 
man. The Church was an independent organization of an 
excellent and efficient kind : it formed " a state within a 
state," and, to the earnest Christian, the authority of the 
Church counted for more than the commands of the State. 
The Church did not, as a rule, denounce the empire as a wicked 
and hateful institution ; and the empire had, for the most part 
(despite occasional persecutions), treated the Church with 
contemptuous toleration. But this toleration was impossible 
as the Church grew strong, as it attained a power that was 
a serious rival to that of the empire ; and during the course 
of the third century, the friction between the two powers 
developed into a contest, in which the empire was, in the end, 
defeated. A new religion has always been the greatest of 
revolutionary forces : and the steady growth of Christianity 
seems to be everywhere the condition, and often the direct cause 
of the troubles of the third century. Christianity inspired its 
votaries with a new enthusiasm, turned their efforts towards 
a new goal, and, though by no means always in conflict with 
the empire, broke up its unity and necessarily weakened it. 

The situation at the death of Commodus was very much 
like what it had been at the death of Nero. The Senate at 
Revolution at ^^^^ appointed an elderly member of their own 
the death of body, Pertinax ; but it was soon clear that the 
Commodus. choice was not to be left in their hand?, and, as 
in 69, the imperial authority was soon a prize for which all 
the armies of the empire struggled. The praetorian guards, 
the legions of Britain, Syria, Pannonia, all put forward 
candidates. It was with the last that victory in the end 



The Great Decline in the Empire 



lOI 



rested, and in 193 their leader, Septimius Severus, became 
emperor of the Roman world. 

Septimius Severus was of African descent. No province 
was more thoroughly Romanized than Africa ; but Septimias 
Severus had no sympathy for the point of view of Septimius 
the City of Rome. He was wholly a soldier, and Severus. 
the problems of politics and citizenship only interested him in 




Septimius Severus. 

{Prom the Marble Bust in the CapitoUne Museum.^ 

Born, 146 a.d. ; emperor, 193-2H a.d. 

a secondary degree. The chief interest of his reign lies in his 
military policy. He broke up the praetorian guards and en- 
trusted the capital of the empire to an ordinary detachment of 
the army. He increased the pay of the soldiers, and allowed 
the legionaries the privilege of wearing a golden ring. More 
important, he allowed them to marry, to possess property, and 
to live in permanent quarters. Sach a step was doubtless 
popular, and its consequences could not at the time be foreseen. 



I02 



Outlines of European History 



Bat the legions, henceforth, came to have a special interest in 
one particular part of the empire, and were no longer ready to 
move at a moment's notice to any point of the defences where 
danger called them. The soldiers, too, came to a full con- 
sciousness of their own power, and the empire took a long step 
in the direction of a purely military despotism — the character 
which it plainly bears before the end of the century. 

Septimius Severus died in York in 211. He was succeeded 




Caracalla. 

{Fiom the Marble Bust in the Vatican Museum.} 

Born, 188 a.d. ; emperor, 211-21t a.d. 

This bust of Caracalla is the last finely executed portrait of an emperor. After his reign 

the sculptor's art declined, and the later portrait-busts are of inferior execution. 

by his son, Caracalla, who carried on the general lines of 
his policy ; but the event of his reign that is most 
Caracalla. memorable is his grant of full Roman citizenship 
to all free provincials. In this he was but completing the 
liberal tendencies of the empire ; there had been aU through 
a tendency to efface the difference between Roman and non- 
Roman among the free inhabitants of the empire. But it 
seems to have been rather a contempt for Rome than a 
sympathy with the provincials that inspired the grant of 
Caracalla. Financial considerations also played an important 



The Great Decline in the Empire 103 

part. Caracalla was in most respects a violent tyrant, and met 
his death by assassination in 217. 

There came, on his death, another spasm of military revolu- 
tion, and then the Syrian armies raised to the throne a young 
man who goes in history by the assumed name of The Syrian 
Elagabalus. Septimius Severus and Caracalla were emperors : 
Africans. Now for two reigns the empire was in Elagabalus. 
the hands of men of Syrian origin. Elagabalus was no war 
chief. He was a young man of effeminate appearance and habit, 
who had hitherto been destined to be the high priest of the god 
Elagabalus at Emesa in Syria. The legions raised him to the 
throne perhaps lecause of his weakness, which assured them 
that he would be unable to resist their demands. When four 
years later, after a career of vice and crime, his reign was ended 
by assassination, it was again a young man of no military experi- 
ence whom the soldiers elevated to the throne. Alexander 
Severus was cousin of Elagabalus ; but he was Alexander 
simple and virtuous in his life, and devoted him- Severus. 
self to the public welfare. His reign is an attractive interval 
in the lurid annals of the third century ; but his good inten- 
tions availed nothing in those iron times, and his life was 
taken by the soldiers of the Rhine army during a mutiny 
in 235. 

The chief interest of these two short reigns is that they 
show us the growing importance of the religious movements of 
the time. Religion and war are the two forces Growing 
that determine all the century. The intellectual influence of 
and religious life of the Roman Empire was in a "^ehg-ion. 
condition of wild fermentation. The Christian Church was 
slowly consolidating its organization and gathering strength 
in its struggle with the various heresies of the time. It 
claimed many adherents even among the upper classes of 
society. But the strongest religious movement on the surface 
of society was what is known as Mithraism. In 
this strange movement all pagan beliefs were 
grouped round the worship of the Sun-god, and the Sun-god 
was represented in his Eastern and Persian form as Mithras. 
His worship was surrounded with symbol and mystery which it is 
not now possible to understand. But of all the pagan worships, 



104 Outlines of European History 

it was the strongest and the most dangerous rival to Chris- 
tianity. Had Christianity not displaced the old pagan cults, 
they would have been probably reorganized under the influence 
of Mitbraism. The Emperor Elagabalus represented this new 
sun worship in its basest and most repellent form. During 
the reign of his mild and virtuous successor the new cult was 




Mithras Group. 

(7n the British Museum.) 

The chief features of this group always appear in Mithraic monuments — the youth in 
Phrygian cap, grasping the nostrils of a bull, into whose side he drives a sword — the 
dog and the serpent licking the blood, the scorpion fastening on the belly of the animal. 

discredited, but the old faiths could not be restored to power 
in their old form. Many men, conscious of the need for a new 
faith, were for embracing all that was new with little dis- 
crimination. Alexander Severus, we are told, was accustomed 
to pray every morning in a private shrine, and this shrine was 
decorated with the figures of " Apolloniua, Orpheus, Abraham, 



Reconstruction of the Empire 105 

and Christ." Each of these is representative of a strong 
religious movement of the time. The exclusive victory of the 
last name could not then be foreseen. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

Barbarian Invasion and the Reconstruction of 
the Empire 

Decius defeated and slain by the Goths 251 A.D. 
Valerian defeated by Persians . . . 260 A.D. 

Death of Aurelian 275 A.D. 

Diocletian, Emperor 284 A.D. 

Abdication of Diocletian 305 A. D. 

Constantine's Edict of Religious^ 

Toleration / 3^3 A.D. 

Death of Constantine 337 A. D. 

The amiable virtues of Alexander Sever us did not suffice to 
restore the prosperity of the empire. Upon his death a period 
of still wilder confusion began. The central Disruption of 
government for a time almost disappeared, and, the empire, 
abandoned by Eome, each group of provinces tried to set up 
some sort of government of its own. It seemed as if the 
empire were going to fall into three main sections : (1) Italy 
the large islands, and usually Africa, held together ; (2) Gaul, 
Britain, and Spain were, for a time, joined together under one 
of the most efficient governments of the time ; (3) and in the 
east, Syria and Egypt, with most of Asia Minor, were governed 
from the great trading centre of Palmyra. But there was 
nothing definite or permanent about these divisions. Every 
one in theory believed in the unity of the empire, and in Eome 
the old machinery of government still worked, though feebly. 

While the unity of the empire thus temporarily disappeared, 
the invasions of the barbarians began to be far more serious 
than they had ever been before. One strong The new 
reason for these invasions is doubtless to be found barbarian 
in the fact that the empire was less able to resist i^ivasions. 
them than formerly ; but the barbarians were themselves much 
stronger than they had been — more definite in their organizatiouj 



To6 Outlines of European History 

more skilful in their military methods. Upon the Ehine 
frontier the Alamanni and the Franks wrought great havoc, 
and the Alamanni even penetrated into Italy, But the chief 
danger to Rome at this time came from the Goths 
and the reconstituted Persian state. Of all races 
that invaded the Roman Empire, the Goths were the most 
humane and the most susceptible of Roman culture. The 
word "barbarian," indeed, does them some injustice. They 
were heathens, worshipping Thor and Woden ; they were 
undisciplined and loose in their forms of government ; but 
their treatment of the countries which they invaded was not 
particularly cruel or destructive. The chief seat of their power 
was in the Crimean peninsula and the south of Russia. In a 
series of incursions they harried the Balkan peninsula and the 
coasts of the Black and Aegean seas. In 251 they fought, 
in the north-east corner of the Balkan peninsula, a battle 
against the Romans, in which the Emperor Decius was de- 
feated and slaiu. But they were not yet ready for permanent 
settlement within the Roman Empire, and the flood soon 
retired behind the Danube. In Parthia a revolution had taken 
place which brought the new Sassanid dynasty to power and 
revived the old national religion of Persia. The new dynasty 
showed itself military and efficient. Armenia and Syria were 
overrun. In 260 a Roman Emperor, Valerian, was defeated and 
taken prisoner in fighting against their King Sapor near Edessa. 
The dissolution of the empire seemed approaching ; but the 
empire had still great recuperative forces. Claudius was raised 
The recovery to the throne in 268, and had at once to face 
of the empire, another great Gothic invasion. The Goths were 
at present quite unequal to a contest with a Roman army well 
disciplined and well led, and they were defeated and driven back 
beyond the Danube. In 270 Claudius died of the plague, and 
was succeeded by a still better soldier, AureHan. The soldiers 
called him " Sword-in-hand," and he deserved their confidence 
by defeating the Goths and the new kingdom of Palmyra, and 
reuniting the whole empire again under his rule. He calls 
himseK on bis coins " Restorer of the World," and he deserves 
the title. But even he fell by assassination (274). 

With his death, something of the old confusion returned. 



Reconstruction of the Empire icy 

though the empire did not reach again such a depth of 
humiliation as between 250 and 260. In 284 the soldiers 
raised Diocletian, whose father had been a slave, to the throne. 
There seemed no reason why he should be more than another 
military upstart ; but, in fact, his accession marks the beginning 
of a new life for the Eoman Empire. 

Let us note before going further the situation in the empire 
upon the accession of Diocletian. The system of government 
had grown much more absolute since the death _ ... 
of Marcus Aurelius. All pretence of the mainte- the empire 
nance of the old republican constitution had been at the end of 
dropped. The emperor was all in all. The senate ^^^ third 
and officials bearing the old republican titles still ' 

existed at Eome, but they had sunk to the lowest depth of 
servility. The will of the emperor was law ; and absolutism 
had made its way into the self-governing municipalities in a 
most dangerous fashion. There, too, the machinery of freedom 
existed, but it was employed to enforce the will of the central 
government, and to exact taxes that were becoming a burden 
too heavy to be borne. For the financial distress had become 
extreme. The confusion of the century had caused the ruin of 
trade ; the wars, both civil and foreign, had made the exaction 
of heavy taxes a necessity ; and they were so assessed and so 
collected as to make their weight unnecessarily heavy. War 
and financial distress had left little time for the cultivation of 
literature or the fine arts. The literary annals of Eome are 
almost blank. The monuments of the art and sculpture of 
this time all indicate an alarming decadence. It was only in 
the domain of law that the intellect of pagan Eome still worked 
with fruitful effect. They were iron times, indeed ; but one all- 
important feature is still to be mentioned. The age turned 
with increasing devotion to questions of religion. Growing 
The old paganism was dead, the old scepticism influence of 
was dead ; Greek philosophy was no longer the religion, 
powerful influence it had once been. But supernatural religion 
claimed more adherents than ever. The rivalry of Mithraism 
and Christianity was intense, and they were but two out of many 
systems that claimed to reveal to man his destiny, and to 
teach him the way of salvation. 



io8 Outlines of European History 

No Roman emperor since Augustus left so clear a mark on 
the fabric of the empire as Diocletian. He has been called " a 
second Augustus," but there is little resemblance 
in character or ideas between the Roman aristocrat 
with his subtlety and make-believe, and this slave's son whose 
policy was in everything clearly based on the support of the 
army, and who cut the empire for ever adrift from the 
republican ideas to which it had clung for so long. 

Two principles guided the reorganization of the State. First 
he surrounded the person of the emperor with a mass of cere- 
Thenewim- niony and etiquette, such as the Romans of the 
perial system, old time had always ridiculed and despised, as being 
the special characteristic of the servile Eastern monarchies. 
Diocletian adopted many of these Oriental forms : he wore 
the golden diadem ; he surrounded his chamber with guards, 
and exacted an elaborate ceremonial which made access to his 
person difficult. Those who reached his presence touched the 
ground with their foreheads, and addressed him on their knees. 
There was more than vanity in all this. He had noted the 
constant assassinations to which the emperors in the past 
had fallen victims, and he desired to surround the emperor 
with something of " the divinity that doth hedge a throne," 
thinking that, with the decrease of famiharity, the risk of 
assassination would also decrease. The nobles and the servants of 
the State were also ranged around him in a vast hierarchy of rank. 

Next he decreased the unit of administration, and vastly 
increased the number of officials that were to administer the 
. empire. The empire was to be divided into two 

tive sub- sections by a line drawn north and south through 

division of the Adriatic Sea, and each of these divisions was 
the empire. ^^ ^^ entrusted to an emperor with the title of 
Augustus, though one was to have titular precedence over the 
other ; and under each Augustus there was to be a sub-emperor 
with the title of Caesar ; and thus, in effect, for one emperor 
there were to be substituted four. The same principle was to 
be pursued everywhere. The empire was divided into twelve 
great divisions, called dioceses, and into one hundred smaller 
ones, called provinces ; and civil and military duties were to 
be entrusted to an entirely different set of officials. The new 



Reconstruction of the Empire 109 

macliinerj seems to have worked well, for the imperial fabric 
was held together, and the population was kept in obedience ; 
but it implied an immense financial burden to the State. Four 
courts existed instead of one ; the number of officials was greatly 
increased ; and at the same time the army was enormously 
strengthened. Somewhat later it was said that those who paid 
the taxes were less numerous than those who lived on them. 

Diocletian was an excellent soldier. He fought north and 
south and east and west, and always with success, and in 303 
triumphed gloriously in Rome. " It was the last The Chris- 
triumph that Rome ever beheld," says Gibbon ; tians. 
" for soon after this period the emperors ceased to vanquish, 
and Rome ceased to be the capital of the empire." Bat the 
greatest contest was not with the barbarians, but with the 
Christians, and in that he was less successful. 

Ever since Christianity had become a real force the emperors 
had regarded it with hostility, but they had not persecuted 
it systematically, nor had they issued at first any special 
edicts against it. The ordinary laws of Rome applied, or could 
be made to apply, to it, and in the reigns of Nero, Domitian, 
Marcus Aurelius, and Decius, Christians had suffered, but not 
in all parts of the empire, or in great numbers. In spite of all 
persecution, the Christian Church had grown. It was im- 
possible for the State to ignore it any longer. According to 
the ideas which both entertained at this time, the Roman world 
could not contain both empire and Church. One must triumph 
over the other, or both must make concessions. 

At first Diocletian had treated the Christians with con- 
sideration, but in the last years of his reign he was induced 

to chano^e his policy, and to plan as^ainst them an t^- 1 ^- 1 

* .1 T 1 -, Diocletian's 

attack, the most dangerous and the I'aost general persecution 

that they had as yet suffered from. Their churches of the ^ 

were to be destroyed ; their sacred books were to ^^"^tians. 

be hunted out and burnt ; their bishops were to be imprisoned, 

and the whole organization of their Church broken up. The 

persecution was pressed vigorously ; and many suffered death, 

and more degradation and imprisonment. But the persecution 

failed. Many Christians were induced to renounce their faith, 

and many fled into hiding, but the organization of the Church 



no Outlines of European History 

was not destroyed, and the devotion of its sincere adherents 
was but increased by their trials. In 305 Diocletian recognized 
the failure of his attempt, and resolved to abdicate and retire 
into private life. In spifce of many solicitations he persisted 
in his decision until his death in 313. 

The empire had failed to crush the Church. It remained 
for Diocletian's successor either to carry on the struggle and to 
add a religious war to the other wars from which the empire 
suffered, or to make some arrangement with the invincible 
Church. It was this latter policy which was carried out by 
Constantine the Great. But before that consummation was 
arrived at, there was another period of confusion and civil war. 
The administrative system of Diocletian proved to be per- 
manent in its main lines ; but his arrangement whereby two 
Renewed Augusti and two Caesars were to hold imperial 
confusion on power at the same time proved soon to be un work- 
Diocletian's able, as the jealousies and ambitions of the different 
death. rulers soon broke through that system of balance 

and subordination, and again the rule over the whole empire 
became the prize of civil war. Constantius had been Emperor 
and " Augustus " of the West, and upon his death in 306 his son 
Constantine was acclaimed emperor by the legions stationed at 
York, and it was in York that he first wore the imperial purple 
robe. He hesitated to accept the dangerous honour ; and he 
found that his claims were disputed by Maxentius, who ruled in 
Eome, and Galerius, who ruled in the East. Events developed 
slowly and cannot be followed in detail. But in 312 the battle 
of the Milvian Bridge across the Tiber made Constantine master 
of the western half of the empire, and ten years later (323), 
when war broke out with the eastern half of the empire, 
Constantine proved too strong for Licinius, the successor of 
Galerius, and the submission of his rival made him master of 
the whole of the Eoman world. 

Among the Roman emperors no one, unless it be Julius 
Caesar, has left so indelible a mark on European history as 
The work of Constantine. Hewas, clearly, a man of great energy 
Constantine. and f orce of character, and had he not inaugurated 
the great religious change which is chiefly connected with his 
name, he would nevertheless have stood high among the Roman 



Reconstruction of the Empire m 

stafcesmen of this time for his energy and success in war, and 
for his skilful and vigorous administration. His armies showed 
themselves as successful in their struggles with the barbarians 
as thej had been in fighting against his rivals for the empire. 




The Arch of Gonstantine, Eome. 
{From, Guhl und Koner's " Leben der GrUchen und Edmer.") 
This arch stands near the Coliseum, and is evidence of the decadence of art in Constantine's 
*V^' ^ -^^ °^ *^® ^^^^^^^ ^^® ^^^■'y executed, but those are taken from an earlier arch 
ol Hadrian's. The work of Constantine's own period is poor and mean. 

The frontiers were safe under his rule, and in the interior some- 
thing of the old peace and order returned. But Constantine's 
name stands in history for two great changes, and we may 
confine our attention to these. 

First, he transferred the capital of the empire from Rome to 



112 Outlines of European History 

Constantinople. So great was the reverence of tlie Romans for 
the city of Eome itself, that this inevitably caused a great shock 
Foundation ^^ public feeling.' But it was only the completion 
of Constant!- of a tendency that had been marked for more than 
nopie. a century. Rome had lost her exclusive position 

in the empire ; the realms she had conquered no longer in any 
real sense belonged to her, and as the peace of the empire broke 
up and the frontiers needed more and more careful attention, 
Rome had become an unsuitable residence for the head of the 
empire. The emperors of the third century had not, as a rule, 
lived there. Under Diocletian's plan, neither the Caesars nor 
the Augusti were to make Rome their centre. They were to 
choose some city that was nearer the menaced frontiers and 
more capable of defence. And if a new capital were to be 
chosen, none was so suitable as the city on the Bosphorus which 
had hitherto been called Byzantium, but was henceforvrard to 
be known as Constantinople. The strength and the importance 
of the site had been long known. The city stood at the end of 
a peninsula, washed on three sides by the tideless sea, and on 
the land side easily defensible by fortified walls. The next 
thousand years were to show how admirable, from a military 
point of view, was the choice that Constantine made. More- 
over, it lay between the two frontiers which, at the beginning 
of the fourth century, gave most anxiety to the master of the 
legions. The Goths were posted on the Danube ; the Persians 
threatened on the Euphrates. The city, too, was not less 
admirably situated for commerce than for war. It commanded 
the narrow straits through which all the commerce of the Black 
Sea must pass ; it was within easy reach of the islands of the 
Aegean and the coasts of Asia Minor ; it was nearer to the corn- 
harvests of Egypt than Rome had been. 

So the eagles left the banks of the Tiber and settled on the 
shore of the Bosphorus. It was a momentous change. It did 
not, indeed, imply in any way that the Roman Empire had 
come to an end. The empire was still Roman, though its seat 
was in Constantinople; but in fact, though not in name, a 
great change came over the empire from this time. In the 
Eastern Empire the Greek language was as dominant as Latin 
was in the West, and it became in time the official language of the 



Reconstruction of the Empire 113 

empire in consequence. The transference of power to the East 
doubtless secured the East from barbarian conquest for many 
centuries ; but it proportionately weakened the defences of the 
West. At last, the city of Rome, deserted by the emperor, found 
her great representative in her bishop, and the action of Constan- 
tiue stands thus in close relation with the growth of the Papacy. 

The religious policy of Oonstantine was even more mo- 
mentous. The precise form of his own religious opinions it is 
difficult to determine ; but if he had reservations constantine 
with regard to Christianity, if he still thought of and Christi- 
the older faiths as containing possibly some truth ^"^^y* 
and some value, he recognized as a statesman the strength of 
the Christian Church, and the history of the past showed him 
how ill the efforts of those had succeeded who fought against 
it. He determined to enter into partnership with it, to extend 
the imperial protection over it ; and he hoped that in return 
the empire would draw strength and stability from its support. 

Christianity did not during Constantine's reign become the 
officially established or exclusively dominant faith. But it 
gahied the patronage and support of the emperor ; Eifect of 
it was relieved from all disabilities and was granted Constan- 
certain privileges, such as the exemption of its tine's policy, 
clergy from certain taxes and burdens that ordinary citizens 
had to bear. But the real significance of Constantine's acts is 
to be found, not in any special edicts of his reign, but in his 
whole attitude towards the Church. The empire became a 
protecting instead of a persecuting power. The Church after 
two centuries and a half of oppression and obscurity now came 
into the light of day and enjoyed a sense of security. Other 
faiths were tolerated, but Christianity was favoured. Constantine 
presided at a Church council, introduced the Christian symbols 
into the official insignia, and was himself baptized into the 
Christian Church shortly before his death. 

The domestic life of Constantine was no credit to the faith 
he had embraced. The reigns of Nero and Commodus had 
not seen worse palace scandals. His son by his The private 
first marriage and his second wife were both put life of Con- 
to death. Moreover, his relation to the religious stantme. 
controversies within the Christian Church was questionable ; 

I 



114 Outlines of European History 

and when at last he received baptism, it was at the hands of a 
heretical Arian bishop. But none the less the Church was 
elated at the victory it had won through his patronage. 
Security and freedom had come, and it pressed forward with 
confidence to dominion and triumph. Christian writers antici- 
pated the arrival of a Golden Age, not only for the Church, 
l3ut for the world. The establishment of Christianity, said 
one writer, was to restore the innocence and the happiness of 
the primitive age ; dissensions would cease and all angry and 
selfish passions were to be restrained ; mankind was to be 
universally actuated by the sentiments of truth and piety, of 
equity and moderation, and harmony and universal love. 

The career of Constantine may be taken as marking the end 
of the classical period and inaugurating the Middle Ages. 
The beg-in- ^^^h divisions are necessarily arbitrary. No date 
ning of the and moment really separates one age from another. 
Middle Ages, rj^j^^ course of European civilization is continuous, 
and the centuries are indissolubly linked together. But when 
Constantine died in 337, the chief characteristics of the Graeco- 
Roman world had passed away. The city-state was gone 
with its intense but narrow patriotism. Government by free 
assemblies and by freely elected officials had given place to a 
scheme of government drawing its force at every point, not 
from below but from above, not from the people but from the 
emperor. The old pagan religion, with its beauty and its 
weakness, its frank acceptance of pleasure and its slight insist- 
ence on morality, was gone : the pagan philosophers were 
ceasing to command men's attention and to control their lives. 
And as the old powers waned, a new power had risen, the 
power of the ideas and organization of the Christian Church : 
a power new in kind, resting primarily on persuasion, not on 
force, appealing to men's feelings rather than to their intellects, 
opposing to the attractions of Jupiter or Apollo or Mithras, 
the vision of the Divine Christ and His Mother. For the next 
thousand years of European history the Christian Church is 
the point of most interest and importance. It is the policy 
and the influence, the victories and the contests of the 
Church which give to the Middle Ages their most prominent 
characteristics. 



Triumph of Christianity in the Roman Empire 115 



PART II 

THE MIDDLE AGES 

CHAPTER I 
The Triumph of Christianity in the Roman Empire 

Julian, Emperor 361 

Theodosius, Emperor 379 

Extinction of Paganism 394 

Tt is more difficult to tell briefly and clearly the story of the 
Middle Ages than of the classical world. In the latter case 
the story is clearly a unity. The dispersed political The chief 
life of Greece leads us up to the concentration features of the 
of Rome, which sheltered and preserved the un- Middle Ages, 
surpassable products of the Greek mind in art, literature, 
philosophy, science. But soon after the beginning of the fourth 
century concentration again gives way to dispersion. We are 
to see how the unity of the empire was broken up by the 
successful attacks of the barbarians ; how for a long time the 
efforts of the barbarians to found states of their own were un- 
successful ; how at last the Franks built up a great state with 
its centre on the Rhine, and how this state was dignified in the 
end by the title of empire. We shall see, meantime, how, 
amidst all the confusions of the time, the Church was irresistibly 
advancing in strength ; how it entered into an alliance with 
the Frankish Empire, which was of immense advantage to both ; 
how the alliance was later changed into enmity, and the last 
two centuries of the Middle Ages were occupied by a fierce 
struggle between Empire and Papacy, in the course of which 
both powers suffered irreparable loss, and fell from the central 
position in Europe that they had held for so long. 



ii6 Outlines of European History 

At the death of Constantine the fabric of the empire was 
in appearance stronger than it had been for a century and a 
The dangers ^^^^- "^^^ Church, which had been its most 
threatening dangerous enemy, was now a strong support ; while 
the empire. a vast army and a network of officials secured the 
peace of its dominions. But there were great dangers threaten- 
ing. The Goths and the Persians were always at the gates ; 
the fierce dissensions of the Church brought a new source of 
trouble ; the vast machinery of the State was expensive and 
oppressive ; and never was the difficulty as to the succession 
more troublesome than in the reigns that followed the death of 
Constantine. The future was to show that the empire was 
extraordinarily tenacious of life. In changed forms, it outlived 
the Middle Ages ; but gradually the oatlying parts of the 
empire fell away or were torn away, and in less than one 
hundred years the system of Constantine prevailed only over 
half the territories which Constantine himself had ruled. 

The Church and the barbarians : these are the chief forces of 
the immediate future. And first, let us follow the history of the 
The final Church to its final victory over paganism. On the 
victory of death of Constantine in 337, there ensued so fierce 
Christianity. ^ domestic struggle that even the annals of the 
Roman Empire can hardly parallel it. Brothers, uncles, and 
cousins were swept away by execution or assassination, until at 
last, in 350, Constantius reigned alone. Seven cousins, it is 
reckoned, had perished, but one, Juhan, remained, and was en- 
trusted with the command of the legions on the Khine frontier, 
where he fought and governed with conspicuous ability and 
success. There must have been the deepest jealousy between the 
cousins from the first ; but the actual raising of Julian to the 
imperial power came from the soldiers rather than from his 
own ambition. When war broke out, Julian carried it out 
with the same eager energy which he had displayed against 
the Germans ; but he did not actually come to blows with his 
cousin. Constantius died as he was marching from the East 
to the defence of Constantinople, and in 361 Julian was sole 
master of the Roman world. 

Julian's reign saw the last effort of paganism to save itself 
from complete effacement at the hands of the victorious 



Triumph of Christianity in the Roman Empire 1 1 7 

Christian Church. The circumstances of the time were favour- 
able to a pagan revival. For the hopes of universal peace and 
brotherly love which some had entertained as the The disputes 
consequence of the Christian victory were far of Christians, 
from having been fulfilled. Christians were now opposing 
Christians with as much bitterness as they had formerly dis- 
played against their pagan enemies. Among a considerable 
section of society theological controversy had become a passion. 
The great dispute of the day concerned the definition that 
should be given of the person and nature of Christ. There 
were several variations of opinion on the poiut ; but the great 
rival doctrines were orthodoxy and Arianism. While the Church 
under the leadership of its great chief, Athauasius, proclaimed 
that Christ was of " the same substance with the Father," the 
Arians, on the other hand, though as mystic in their expres- 
sions as their opponents, declared that Christ was not " of the 
same," but "of similar substance" with the Father. The 
struggle was no trivial or verbal one, though it may seem so 
upon the surface. It struck down to the very roots both of 
theology and of the ceremonies and government of the Church. 
The conflict between the Arians and the Athanasians was bitter 
and persistent. For nearly three centuries it was a profound 
influence on the political and social, as well as on the religious 
life of Europe. In the province of Afiica a more obscure 
controversy provoked even fiercer passions. Its origin is to 
be found in a disputed episcopal election, and the personal 
difference prolonged itself from generation to generation, until 
the factions could give no intelligible reason for the bitter 
hatred with which each pursued the other. 

These theological wars weakened the Christian cause, and 
many fell away disillusioned from a movement that failed 
so signally to realize the hopes which had been The strength 
entertained of it. Paganism, too, had still a strong o^ pagfanism. 
hold upon the affections, if not upon the intellect of many. 
The victory of Christianity seemed to threaten the very exist- 
ence of the art and philosophy and literature which formed the 
most precious treasure of the pagan world. And paganism, 
as we have seen, was something very different from the faith 
that had been so lightly held in the days of Caesar. It was now 



ii3 Outlines of European History 

mystic and emotional : it claimed to reveal man's destiny, like 
Christianity, and to perform miracles, like Christianity. The 
danger from Chiistianity had given a new life to paganism. 
The mysteries were more frequented than they had been, the 
oracles were constantly appealed to ; the pages of Homer and 
Plato were declared to contain revelations as obscure and as 
important as those of the Scriptures. The struggle between 
Christianity and paganism had at first been between intense 
faith and indifference ; but now faith confronted faith. 

Julian had drunk deeply of the new paganism during his 
residence at the University of Athens. For him paganism 
The Emperor was summed up in Mithraism. He declared that 
Julian. jie regarded the gods of Greece and Rome with 

awe and love and reverence ; that he took them for his masters 
and teachers, his parents and his friends. The chief object of 
his reign was to re-establish their worship in a world that was 
rapidly turning away from it. He declared that he would grant 
religious toleration to all ; but his favour was obviously given 
to the pagans. The Christian symbols disappeared from the 
imperial insignia ; the Christians were forbidden to teach ; 
pagans were preferred to them for office. Julian saw, however^ 
the weakness of paganism in the lack of any organization or 
government which it could oppose to the compact and excellent 
organization of the Church ; and he desired to remedy this 
defect. There was to be a pagan priesthood like the Christian, 
with a hierarchy of rank and a careful training, and all religions, 
except Christianity, were to be recognized and encouraged by 
the State. Had Jalian lived a little longer it seems probable 
that Christianity must have fallen again under the lash of 
imperial persecution. But a war broke out with Persia. Julian 
led the legions to the Tigris and Euphrates, and at first with 
conspicuous success ; but in 363 there came a change of 
fortune, and on the retreat Julian was killed. " Galilean, Thou 
hast conquered," are said to have been his last words ; and 
certainly the supremacy of Christianity was never again seriously 
threatened. The pagan enthusiasts were a small band ; the 
mass of the population had accepted Julian's pagan revival 
without sharing in his devotion to the cause. 

And yet thirty years elapsed before paganism received its 



Alaric and the Gothic Victories 119 

death-blow. Bafc in 379 Theodosius gained the empire, and 
he was a sincere Christian of the orthodox type. In his reign 
Catholicism triumphed over Arianism ; and less The extinc- 
than a hundred years after Diocletian's attempt to tion of 
extinguish Christianity, paganism was deprived of paganism, 
all open and official existence. In 394 Christianity was estab- 
hshed as the only religion of Rome herself ; all sacrifices were 
forbidden on pain of death, the worship of the old gods was 
declared illegal. Pagan temples, with all their priceless 
treasures of art and architecture, were destroyed ; and those that 
were saved were, as a rule, converted into Christian churches. 
The Olympic games were declared at an end ; the glorious group 
of halls and temples was closed ; later the river Alpheus changed 
its bed and flowed directly over the place where one of the 
most characteristic glories of Hellenic life had stood. 

For the whole of Part II. Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Eoman 
Empire is the best and most accessible book for reference. Milman's 
or Bobertso7i's Ecclesiastical History will also be of constant service. 
Bobinson's Readings in European History gives a series of extracts, 
chiefly from contemporary writers, to illustrate European history from 
the decline of the Eoman Empire. Church'' s Beginning of the Middle 
Ages (Epochs of Modern History) is an excellent summary of the 
period down to Charlemagne. Other books that would be of service to 
the teacher are Oman's Dark Ages, and Byzantine Empire and Art of 
War in the Middle Ages, Henderson's Documents of the Middle Ages. 
Droysen's Historical Atlas, and the Album Historiqite of Lavisse and 
Parmentier furnish valuable helps and illustrations. Bamsay Muir's 
New School Atlas of Modern History gives an excellent series of maps 
illustrating European history from the beginning of the Middle Ages 
down to the. present time. 

CHAPTER II 
Alaric and the Gothic Victories 

Ulfilas 3II-3SI 

Battle of Hadrianople 378 

Alaric takes Rome 410 

Fifteen years after paganism had been abolished in Rome, 
Rome, now Christian, was captured by Alaric the Goth. It 
is to the events that led up to that world-shaking event that 



I20 Outlines of European History 

we must now direct our attention. We have seen how in 274 
Aurelian had triumphed over the various enemies of the empire, 
and for a century after that event the empire had remained 
fairly secure from external assaults. 

The Goths had retired behind the Danube, and there they 
had built up a great and powerful, though loosely compacted 
The conver- ^^^^G* Their dominions stretched from the Black 
sionofthe Ssa to the Baltic, and covered much of what is 
Goths. now Eastern Germany and Western Russia. 

During the century that had elapsed since their withdrawal 
from the empire, their character had changed in many im- 
portant respects. They had become a more settled state ; their 
government had assumed a more settled form ; above all, they had 
embraced Christianity. The great missionary of the Goths was 
Ulfilas (311-381). He had resided some time in Constantinople, 
and it was there that he himself had become a Christian. It 
is of the utmost importance to notice that during his residence 
in Constantinople the religion of the emperors was Ariafi 
Christianity, and it was in this form that Ulfilas carried back 
the new faith to his fellow-countrymen. The teaching of 
Ulfilas fell on very fruitful soil. The Goths soon laid aside 
the worship of Thor and of Woden, and threw themselves into 
their new faith with enthusiasm and sincerity. At first the 
fact that their Christianity varied in certain phrases and forms 
from those of the Catholic Church cannot have seemed im- 
portant. But the whole future history of the Goths is pro- 
foundly influenced by this fact, and their political failure is 
largely accounted for by it. It kept them from amalgamating 
with the peoples that they conquered ; it made the compact 
organization of the Catholic Church their rival and their 
enemy. 

It might seem that the Goths were likely to settle down into 
friendly relations with the Romans. But suddenly the whole 
The appear- situation was changed by the appearance of a new 
anceofthe and terrible enemy from the East. The Huns 
Huns. came, and for a century terrified all Europe. These 

dreaded invaders were indeed barbarians and almost savages, of 
Tartar blood. They were a nomad race, without fixed abodes, 
and w'thout a desire for them ; moving with their waggons 



Alaric and the Gothic Victories 121 

and their families from place to place in a devastating horde. 
They fell upon the Gothic army at the river Dniester, 
and defeated it with terrible loss. After that the Gothic 
kingdom was broken up ; the Goths despaired of making 
headway against this new enemy, and saw no road to safety 
except by making their way south of the Danube into the 
Roman dominions. The land that lay immediately beyond the 
river had often been devastated by war, and was thinly inhabited. 
Barbarians had often been admitted within the limits of the 
Koman Empire, and when, in 376, the Goths made their request, 
there was not at first any disposition to refuse it. 

In 376 there were two emperors — Gratian ruled in the West, 
Yalens in the East. It was by Yalens that the Goths were 
admitted. But their enormous numbers alarmed ^j^^ Qot^s 
the emperor ; they seemed, says a contemporary, in Europe, 
as innumerable as the sands of the sea, and the The battle of 
imperial agents adopted towards them a policy of ^^^"^^ople. 
harassing suspicion, which soon changed their relations to the 
empire into open hostility. Yalens marched with his armies 
against them, and Gratian led the armies of the Western 
Empire to his relief. But before Gratian could come up, 
Yalens had fought and lost the epoch-making battle of 
Hadrianople (378). The Romans were the attacking party, 
and at first they seemed hkely to be victorious. But then the 
Gothic cavalry fell upon them. The Romans were completely 
overwhelmed, and Yalens himself .was slain. The battle was 
epoch-making in more ways than one. For, first, the Roman 
Empire never really recovered from the effects of this blow, 
and the balance of victory rests henceforward with the Goths. 
And, secondly, the part played by the Gothic cavalry in the 
battle is significant. The Romans had gained all their victories 
with foot soldiers, and had used cavalry only as a subsidiary 
arm ; but from this time forward, for a thousand years, cavalry 
forms the most important part of European armies, until, in the 
fourteenth century, the battles of Crecy and Poictiers marked 
the decadence of the armed knight and the rise of foot soldiers 
to a second period of importance. 

The catastrophe of Hadrianople and the death of Yalens 
seemed to threaten the eastern part of the empire with utter 



122 Outlines of European History 

destruction, for no Eoman army was left that conld resist them. 
But the Goths were not enemies of the empire. Of all the 
Theodosius barbarians, they had most reverence for Roman 
and the civilization, and were readiest to enter into some 

Goths. sort of compact with the imperial power. Moreover, 

soon after the battle of Hadrianople, the Goths were weakened 
by dissensions in their own ranks and by a visitation of plague. 
Theodosius, whose importance in religious history we have 
already seen, was raised to the throne on the death of 
Yalens, and by energy and policy he succeeded in making a 
memorable compact with the victorious Goths. By its terms 
the Goths were guaranteed lands within the Roman Empire, 
the greater number of them settled south of the Danube in 
Thrace, and they were recognized as subjects of the empire, 
though exempt from tribute for a number of years in con- 
sideration of their necessitous condition. In return, forty 
thousand Goths were to serve in the Roman army. 

Henceforward these barbarian troops play a preponderant 
part in the history of the empire. They were called t\iQ federati, 
The Goths as ™^^ serving, that is to say, according to the treaty, 
auxiliaries of The policy was clearly a dangerous one. Empires 
the empire, have often been excellently served by conquered 
races, but here the Roman Empire was enlisting her conquerors. 
Tact and firmness might have achieved success ; but all 
chance of success died with the death of Theodosius. These 
federate troops felt themselves superior to the masters whom 
they served. And the only way in which the emperors could 
defend themselves against their " federate " allies was by taking 
leading barbarians into their personal service. Henceforth the 
armies that attack, and the armies that defend, the Roman 
Empire seem almost equally barbarian. 

Theodosius died in 395. In the same year Alaric was 
raised to the kingship of the Visigoths, or Western Goths. 
Alaric the The word " barbarian," though custom compels us 
Visigoth. to apply it to him, is singularly inapplicable. He 
was a Christian, and one might almost say a gentlenaan, con- 
vinced of the vakie of the empire which he attacked, and by no 
means desiring to destroy it, but rather to force his way into 
some post of honour and power under it. Note, too, that the 



Alaric and the Gothic Victories 123 

death of Theodosius, in 395, led to the final division of the 
empire into two. There had frequently been two emperors 
before this, and no one knew that this was a final division ; 
but so it proved. Arcadius reigned at Constantinople, and 
Honorius in Italy, and never again did one emperor reign 
over all the territories comprised within the dominions of these 
two men. There was, indeed, by-and-by one sole emperor, but 
by that time the greater part of the empire in the west had 
fallen away beyond all hope of recovery. 

Alaric's first quarrel was with the Eastern Emperor. A 
financial dispute was the occasion of the attack ; and the armies 
of Alaric, though they recoiled from the walls of Alaric and 
Constantinople, swept on victoriously into the Stilicho. 
south of Greece. In its struggle with Alaric the empire 
relied on a soldier of Gothic (Yandal) blood, Stilicho by name. 
He seems to have been Alaric's equal in soldier's skill, and 
Alaric in the end accepted the position of general in command 
of Illyricum. A glance at the map will show how excellently 
posted the Visigoths were in that country for striking into Italy 
or into the Balkan peninsula. 

In 401 Alaric undertook the first of his many invasions of 
Italy. But the troops of the empire were commanded by 
Stilicho, who had transferred his services from the Alaric invades 
Eastern to the Western Empire, and, after a good Italy, 
deal of fighting, Alaric retired back to Illyricum. The 
Emperor Honorius celebrated a great triumph for the victory, 
and the gladiatorial games that were given on the occasion 
are the last of any importance of which there is record. 

But, despite the victory of Stilicho, the Emperor Honorius 
no longer felt himself safe in Eome, and he withdrew with his 
court to Ravenna. This grew later to be a city of fine palaces 
and churches, the remains of which still make it one of the 
most interesting cities in Europe, but at this time it was little 
more than a fortified harbour, defended on the land side by 
swamps and marshes, and on the side of the sea by sandbanks 
and channels of difficult access, which have now silted up and 
left the old harbour at some distance from the sea. Here, in 
408, Honorius committed a crime that swiftly brought its 
punishment. He put Stilicho to death. Jealousy of the great 



124 Outlines of European History 

barbarian chief was probably the motive. Stilicho's soldiers, 
indignant at their command'er's fate, deserted in great numbers 
to Alaric, and, thus strengthened, Alaric again struck into Italy. 

Honorius had no force to oppose to him, and the great 
Visigoth marched through Italy at his pleasure. Honorius 
Rome cap- meanwhile sheltered himself in inglorious security 
tured by behind the marshes of Ravenna. Alaric under- 

Alanc. ^QQ^ |.]^g gjggg Qf Rome in 408, and in that year, 

and again in 409, the city was at his mercy ; but twice he 
accepted terms, and it was only when the promises which were 
made to him were broken that he struck the final blow. His 
third siege of Rome was undertaken in 410. The " eternal 
city," which was destined, said the old writers, to last as long 
as the world lasted, was taken by assault, and its vast wealth 
lay in Alaric's power. 

This was the first sack of Rome, and it is more important 
than any other, though many others were far more destructive. 
Alaric kept his soldiers in some order. They plundered, but 
they did not destroy, nor murder indiscriminately. And soon 
Alaric passed into the south of Italy, and there he died in the 
same year, and was buried in the bed of the river Busento. 

Bradley's History of the Goths (Stories of the Nations) ; Hodgkin's 
Italy and her Invaders ; Gibbon's Decline and Fall, chs. xxix.-xxxi. 



CHAPTER III 
Progress of the Barbarian Conquest of the West 

The Vandals in Africa 429 

Battle of Chalons ~ 450 

Rome taken by the Vandals 455 

End of Roman Empire in the West . . 476 

Theodoric in Italy 489-526 

Battle of Taginae. Expulsion of t)\e\ 

Ostrogoths from Italy J "^ 

The Lombards in Italy . 568 

The Roman Empire did not fall with the fall of the City 
of Rome, but from that date onwards the control of Western 



Barbarian Conquest of the West 125 



15 20 




North- Western Europe about 450 a.d. 



126 Outlines of European History 

Europe passed gradually but decisively out of the hands of the 
emperors into those of the different races of "barbarians." 
Still, for nearly two centuries, the fate of Italy will furnish us 
with the best clue through the chaos that seems to fall on the 
once orderly territories of the empire. New powers emerged, 
new, if transitory, states were founded with bewildering rapidity ; 
under all the confusion the Church was developing her organi- 
zation, and increasing her power, and the confusion and weak- 
ness of the temporal powers assisted her growth. 

The Yisigoths soon passed from Italy. Ataulfus succeeded 
Alaric as their king ; he married Galla Placidia, half-sister to 
the Emperor Honorius, and was induced to leave Italy and 
found a Yisigothic kingdom in southern Gaul and northern 
Spain. "We shall have, later, to follow the fortunes of the 
Yisigoths there. 

In 429 a far more terrible enemy fell upon Roman civiliza- 
tion on the north coast of Africa. The Yandals arrived there 
The Vandals in that year. They were a branch of the Gothic 
in Africa. people, and at one time had been reckoned less 
warlike than the Yisigoths and Ostrogoths. They had passed 
down at an earlier date (before 410) from Germany, through 
Gaul, into Spain, and had settled there. They were formidable 
because of the great skill of their leader, Genseric, and their 
fierceness ; but their numbers were not great. In 429 they 
were invited into Africa by Boniface, the governor, who had a 
quarrel with the Imperial Government ; and Genseric eagerly 
accepted the invitation. 

In no part of the Eoman Empire had Eoman civilization 
penetrated more deeply than in Africa. No province had done 
more for the development of Christianity. Tertullian, Cyprian, 
and Augustine were all Africans, and these are among the greatest 
of the early Churchmen. Roman science had extended culture 
and built cities far beyond the limits of what is now desert. 
The Yandal invasion was the first of many which in time 
effaced all Roman culture from the land. The province as a 
whole made little resistance, but the City of Carthage did not 
fall into Genseric's hands until 439. The Yandals, like all 
the Goth"^, were Arians and bitterly hostile to the orthodox. 
Their short-lived state was piratical and oppressive, and Africa 



Barbarian Conquest of the West 127 

never recovered from the blow .which ifc received at their 
hands. 

The Empire had made no effort to avert the Vandal doom 
from Africa. Every sign of political decadence was to be seen 
in Italy. The retirement of the court into Ravenna Condition of 
was a confession of weakness, and an abandon- Italy, 
ment of the old Roman traditions. Commerce was declining ; 
the wealth of the country was decaying. Only within the 
shelter of the Church was anything of value to be found in 
art or literature. We need not follow the names of the 
emperors. They had none of them any real power over the 
destinies of the State. The sceptre had passed from them into 
the hands of the powerful soldiers, usually of barbarian origin, 
who commanded the troops of many races that formed the 
Roman armies. The greatest of these soldiers, Aetius, was, 
however, an Italian by origin, and while he lived the empire 
was by no means a helpless prey. 

A danger even more terrible than the Yandal invasion of 
Africa fell upon the north of the empire. We have seen that it 
was an attack by the Huns upon the Goths which The Huns in 
had driven them over the Danube into the the north of 
empire. The Hunnish danger now appeared in a ^^^ empire, 
worse form. Attila became king of the Huns in 445. His 
vast empire stretched within vague frontiers from the Baltic to 
the Danube, and from the Rhine to the Yolga. His relations 
with the empire were sometimes friendly. At times he con- 
sented to be regarded as an ally and even as a dependent of 
Rome. But the fierce Tartar horde was really a terrible danger 
to the empire. In 446, he fell upon the Eastern Empire and 
ravaged it right up to the gates of Constantinople, and was 
then bought off with considerable cessions of territory. In 
450 he crossed the Rhine and invaded Gaul ; but Romans and 
Visigoths joined against the invader. Aetius, the Roman, and 
Theodoric, the Visigothic king, fought against him in the great 
battle of Chalons. Attila was decisively repulsed, but was soon 
strong enough to invade Italy from the north-east. Aquileia, 
Verona, and Milan fell before him ; but when it was thought 
that he would repeat Alaric's march on Rome, he turned back 
to his camp beyond the Danube. The intercession of Pope 



128 Outlines of European History 

Leo was said to have prevailed upon him to spare Italy. 
Shortly afterwards he died (453). Later writers, looking back 
on his character and the devastation caused by his troops, called 
him " the Scourge of God." Indirectly his influence was very 
great ; but his inroads on the empire are not to be compared 
for extent with those of the great Gothic leaders. 

Two years later Eome fell again into the hands of a Gothic 
race (455). And this catastrophe was prepared by an incident 
Sack of ^^^y much like the murder of Stilicho, which had 

Rome by the preceded the last invasion of Alaric. We have seen 
Vandals. J^qw Aetius had been instrumental in defeating 
Attila in the battle of Chalons. The Emperor Yalentinian was 
jealous of him, probably not unreasonably, and in 454 assassi- 
nated him. Again, as in 408, Rome and Italy were helpless. 
Genseric, King of the Yandals, availed himself of the oppor- 
tunity, and his piratical fleet appeared at the mouth of the 
Tiber. Rome could not resist. Pope Leo's appeals availed 
only to induce Genseric to be satisfied with booty and spare the 
inhabitants of Rome. For fourteen days Rome was plundered 
ruthlessly and methodically, and then the pirates returned to 
Carthage with their rich prey. 

The shadow of the empire persisted in spite of all, but the 

end was near. Yalentinian was the last emperor of the line of 

-,. , , Theodosius, and henceforth those who bore the 
The end of . ' 

the Roman imperial title were the merest puppets oi the great 
Empire in the soldiers. In 476 the soldier Orestes made his son 
^^^^' Romulus Augustulus emperor ; but immediately 

afterwards Orestes quarrelled with another soldier, Odoacer, 
who represented the demands of the most anti-Roman of the 
troops. Orestes was defeated and killed, and his faU was 
followed by the deposition of his son Romulus Augustulus from 
the imperial title. It seemed then that the farce of empire 
should cease. The imperial insignia were sent to Constantinople 
with a request that Odoacer should be invested with the title of 
Patrician and the government of Italy. 

The event raised no great interest at the time. Romulus 
Augustulus was not such an important person that his dis- 
appearance could raise much comment. But looking back at it, we 
see that it marks the end of the Roman Empire in the AYest. In 



Barbarian Conquest of the- West 129 

form, indeed, ifc was the reunion of the West to the Eastern 
Empire, for Odoacer recognized in vague terms the supremacy of 
Constantinople ; but, in fact, the imperial authority character of 
had departed from Italy. The empire was, indeed, the event, 
by no means at an end ; it existed still in Constantinople, and 
less than a century later Italy was reconquered and temporarily 
reannexed to the imperial dominions. And in the year 800 
we shall see how, in the west of Europe, there rose again a great 
ruler with the title of Roman Emperor. But in 476 the line 
of rulers that had been inaugurated by Julius Caesar and 
Augustus came, so far as Italy is concerned, to a most unheroic 
end. " It is not a storm or an earthquake or a fire, this end of 
Eoman rule over Italy: it is more like the gentle fluttering 
down to earth of the last leaf of a withered tree." 

After 476, the most important events for the political history 
of Western Europe were taking place beyond the Alps ; but for 
convenience we will follow the destinies of Italy ,, , ,. 
for nearly another century before we examine the 476. The 
great new factors that were coming into European Ostrogothic 
history. ^"^^^^°"- 

Odoacer only ruled as Patrician in Italy for thirteen years. 
Then in 489 there came a new Gothic invasion. When Alaric 
had marched into Italy one portion of the Gothic race, the 
Ostrogoths (Eastern Goths) had not accompanied him. They 
had led since that time an unsettled and wandering life, and had 
for some time been in alliance with, or subordination to, the 
Huns. Their racial character is not easily distinguishable from 
that of the Visigoths. They were Arian Christians, good 
soldiers, and quickly susceptible of civilizing influences. As a 
race they had a career as brilliant and as transitory as that of 
their relatives, the Visigoths. Their king, Theodoric, showed 
the highest qualities of statesmanship that were ever exhibited 
by any Gothic king. Odoacer was beaten by them in the 
north of Italy. He fled to Ravenna, and was put to death 
after his surrender. Theodoric ruled in Italy without any 
serious rival from 489 to 526. 

The chief interest of his reign is, that of all the Goths he 
came nearest to founding a successful and stable state. He felt 
the greatness of Roman civilization, and desired to blend it with 



130 



Outlines of European History 



the untrained fierceness and strength of his Gothic warriors. 
He established his court at Eavenna, and adopted the out- 
Theodoric the ward forms of imperial government. He employed 
Ostrogoth. Italians, such as Boethius and Oassiodorus, as 
his ministers. One third of the land was seized by the 
Ostrogoths, but in the rest of Italy the old Eoman life went 
on in much the old way. Theodoric showed a great solicitude 
for Eoman literature and thouG^ht, and though an Arian him- 




The Tomb of Theodoric at liavenna. 

This tomb was erected by Theodoric's daughter about 530 a.d. The dome consists of a 
huge block and is said to weigh four hundred and seventy tons. The remains of 
Theodoric were afterwards thrown out because of his heresy, and the tomb was turned 
into a church. 



self, gave the most notable example of religious toleration that 
was seen during the whole Middle Ages. His influence and power 
spread far beyond the limits of Italy. He was connected by 
marriage with the Franks, the Burgundians, the Visigoths, and 
the Vandals. His daughter was married to the Visigothic king, 
and on his death Theodoric ruled his kingdom for fourteen years. 
In Western Europe there was no power like his. He was the 
strongest and the most humane ruler of his time. 



Barbarian Conquest of the West 131 

But his last years were disturbed and troubled. The Catholic 
Church was not reconciled to him, despite his toleration ; the 
Latin population of Italj would not accept loyally the rule of 
men whom they called barbarians ; the emperors at Constanti- 
nople regarded Theodoric as a usurper. Thus the end of his 
reign does not show the splendid success of the earlier years. 
Shortly before his death in 526 he quarrelled with the pope and 
threw him into prison. 

After his death the Ostrogothic power was soon threatened 
by the Eastern Empire. Justinian had succeeded to the imperial 
title in 527, and for nearly the last time the situa- 
tion in Constantinople claims our close attention. •'"^ ^^^* 
Justinian left a great and permanent mark on the history of 
Europe. Under his rule Roman law reached its final shape. 
Many eif orts had been made since the days of the Antonines to 
codify Roman law, that is, to summarize it in a logical and 
complete form ; and these efforts culminated at last in the great 
Codex Justinianus. Roman law thus presented was destined 
to have an immense influence on the development of European 
politics and thought during the later Middle Ages. 

But it is the great military exploits of Justinian's reign that 
here claim chief mention. The empire was rich, well ordered, and 
had at this moment in Belisarius one of the greatest Thg imperial 
of the world's generals, and an army of wonderful army under 
efficiency. The imperial army was now a great Belisarius. 
contrast in character to what it had been before the battle of 
Hadrianople. There the foot soldier had been all important ; 
now the foot soldiers play a quite secondary part, and it is the 
horse archer or mounted bowman upon whom Belisarius placed 
his chief reliance. He trusted for victory (and his trust was 
rarely misplaced) to rapidity of movement and to skilful strategy, 
rather than to mere fighting power in the day of battle. 

The empire had, of course, never acquiesced in the Gothic 
conquest of Africa, Spain, G-aul, and Italy; and, when his army 
and his general had proved their efficiency in fight- imperial re- 
ing against the Persians, Justinian despatched them conquest of 
to the recovery of the West. The first blow fell ^^^ ^^^t. 
upon Africa. The Yandal kingdom there was in evil case. It 
exhibited in an extreme form all the signs of decadence that set 



/32 * Outlines of European History 

in sooner or later in all the kingdoms that the Goths founded. 
Genseric was dead, and no capable successor was to be found ; 
the native population was bitterly hostile to their conquerors, 
both as Arians and as oppressors ; the Yandals themselves, in 
these almost tropical lands, had lost their old fierceness, courage, 
and endurance. "When Belisarius landed in Africa in 533, they 
could hardly attempt any resistance. Before the end of the 
year Africa, after being in the possession of the Yandals just 
over a hundred years, was reannexed to the empire. 

The turn of Italy came three years later. First Sicily was 
occupied without difficulty. Then, in 536, Belisarius undertook 
Belisarius ^^^ reduction of the Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy. 
in Italy. The Ostrogoths were weak for the same reasons as 

those which have been noted in the case of the Yandals, but 
they had not fallen so low, and showed that they yet possessed 
the capacity for a great national effort. At first all went 
well with the imperialists. Belisarius took Rome in 536, and 
Ravenna in 540. It seemed that Italy lay again securely in the 
hands of the empire. But the Ostrogothic power was not so 
easily annihilated. Disaster renewed something of their old 
energy. They found a splendid leader in Totila, who is, with 
Alaric and Theodoric, the glory of the Gothic race. He found 
the population of Italy disillusioned with imperial rule by reason 
of the weight of imperial taxes. He took Rome in 549. All 
Italy fell into his hands except Ravenna. Against this new 
power even Belisarius was no longer invincible. The empire 
had to rally all its forces to meet the new Ostrogothic leader. A 
new and strange general was sent out from Constantinople, the 
eunuch Narses. The end came in 553. Totila was defeated 
and killed in the great battle of Taginae ; and in the next year 
the Ostrogothic host asked leave to march out of Italy. Their 
name disappeared for ever from the annals of Europe. 

Thus Justinian and the Roman Empire were in possession 
of Africa, Sicily, and Italy, and Justinian had also achieved a 
Instabiuty of certain amount of success in Spain, where the south 
the imperial and east of the peninsula fell into the power of the 
success. empire. But this great revival of the imperial 

power in the West was no real gain either for the countries re- 
annexed or for the empire. The forces of the empire did not 



Barbarian Conquest of the West 133 

suffice permanently to hold these countries. Their conquest 
was due to the genius of Belisarius and a vast spasmodic effort. 
On the death of Justinian, in 565, there was no one to canyon 
the task to which even his genius would in the long run have been 
unequal. The chief permanent results of this imperial restoration 
were that both the empire and Italy were left in a condition of 
exhaustion and little able to resist their enemies ; while in Italy a 
most promising experiment in government was overthrown, and 
what had taken its place was neither so strong nor so humane. 

A new invader soon appeared. The armies of Belisarius 
and Narses had been a strange collection of different races and 
languages. Among those who had fought in the The Lombard 
imperial ranks at Taginae was a contingent of invasion of 
Lombards. In 568 they attacked on their own ^^^^y* 
account the country which they had assisted to conquer for 
others. The imperial government was far off and weak ; the 
population of Italy was irritated by the weight of the imperial 
burdens. The Lombards did not carry all before them as 
Visigoths, Ostrogoths, and the troops of Belisarius had done ; 
but year by year the imperial power decHned and that of the 
invaders increased. They were fiercer warriors than either 
Visigoths or Ostrogoths, less open to the influences of civiliza- 
tion, and, if report does not lie,. far less truthful and honour- 
able. And yet their hold on Italy was much more permanent 
than that of either Gothic race, and they have left their name 
stamped on the northern plains of Italy. Political reasons 
contributed to this ; but the chief cause seems to have been 
that they gradually became orthodox Catholics. Religion, 
which had been a force that drove Goths and Italians apart, 
now tended, though slowly, to bring Lombards and Italians 
together ; and so, though the Lombards quarrelled fiercely 
with the Papacy, in the end they coalesced with the population 
and formed a part of the basis of the modern Italian race. 

If in conclusion we glance at the map of Italy at the end 
of the sixth century, we see that its territory is divided between 
the empire and the Lombards. The great islands itaiy at the 
(Sicily, Corsica, and Sardinia) belong to the end of the 
empire ; the " heel and toe " of Italy and a wide ^^^^^ century, 
strip of territory stretching from Rome to Ravenna along the 



134 Outlines of European History 

FJaminian Way, and beyond Eavenna to "Venice belong to the 
empire. But the greater part of the Po valley and what is 
now called Tuscany are in the hands of the Lombard kings ; 
and, beyond the broad strip of imperial territory that joined 
Rome and Eavenna, the south and centre of Italy was in the 
hands of the Lombard Dukes of Beneventum and Spoleto. 
Italy had been the great home of political strength, unity, and 
concentration ; and now disunion, weakness,, and dispersion 
had fallen upon it, and were destined to continue to charac- 
terize it, until at last, in the nineteenth century, it achieved 
political unity on a free and national basis. 

Hodgkin's Theodoric (Heroes of the Nations) ; Bury's Later Roman 
Envpire. Gibbon is at his best for this period. 



CHAPTER IV 
The Great Forces of the Early Middle Ages 

Saint Benedict 480-543 

Baptism of Clovis 496 

Gregory the Great, Pope 590-604 

The Hegira of Mahomet 622 

Charles Martel, Mayor of the Palace . 715 

Western Europe was now in a very unstable condition. In 
spite of the imperial restoration, the empire no longer counted 
as a force that made for order and peaceful development. The 
new "barbarian" states were weakly organized and short- 
lived. With each decade the features of the old Eoman order 
grew fainter and fainter in the West, and the features of a new 
order were not yet apparent. We must now notice the three 
forces which by action and reaction brought medieval Europe 
into existence. These are (1) the Papacy, (2) Mahomedanism, 
(3) the Frankish Monarchy. 

We have seen the all-importance of the influence of the 
Church for the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries ; but ifc is 
The rise of HOW important to notice how the Church assumed 
the Papacy. ^ monarchical organization under the Papacy. 
Much, in the rise of the Papacy, is obscure and disputable, but 



The Great Forces of the Early Middle Ages 135 

it is easy to see that there were certain forces favouring its 
growth. The sceptre of empire had deserted the city of Rome, 
and, in consequence, all the traditions of greatness associated 
with the " eternal city " were now attached to its religious head, 
its bishop. The complete political disorder that had fallen 
upon Italy left the religious authority of the pope without 
any serious rival. The State failed to defeat Attila the 
Hun and Genseric the Yandal ; it was the Church that turned 
back the one and modified the violence of the other. For the 
present the Bishop of Eome, or pope, had practically no 
control of physical force ; his power rested on reverence and 
persuasion. But the authority of the Church was on that 
account the more readily recognized, and its victories roused 
no resentment. Note, too, that in the sixth century mon- 
archical ideas were everywhere in the ascendant. There was no 
other ideal of government before Europe. And this tendency 
leads to the absolute Papacy of the Bishop of Rome, as it led 
later to the absolutist ideas of the medieval empire. 

The 'rise and growth of monasticism contributed greatly 
to the strength of the Papacy. The monastic life in some 
form was as old as Christianity, and older. But The rise 
in its early forms it was spasmodic, without ofmonas- 
discipline, and liable to grave excess. The ticism. 
organizer and lawgiver of monasticism was St. Benedict (480- 
543). He drew up his famous rule, in which he laid down 
the course of life that was to be pursued both by monks and 
nuns. Those who entered upon the monastic life were to take 
vows that should be perpetually binding; they were to live 
together, the separate cell was unknown in the Benedictine 
monasteries ; they were to be constantly engaged in work 
whet;her of the head or the hands (" laborare est orare " was 
the Benedictine motto). Each monastery was to manage its 
own afPairs, but the monasteries were in close relation with the 
Roman pope. For the next eight hundred years the monasteries 
were one of the most powerful intellectual and social influences 
in Europe. But here it is specially to be noted how great a sup- 
port they gave to the Papacy. Wherever in Europe there was a 
monastery, there there was a garrison pledged to the defence and 
advancement of the Church in its monarchical papal form. 



136 Outlines of European History 

The rise of the Papacy into its medieval form is specially 
associated with the name of Gregory the Great (590-604). 
Gregory the It was due to his exertions that England was con- 
Great, verted to Christianity ; but his wider importance 
is due to the fact that he organized the government of the 
Eoman Church, and prepared the way for the recognition of 
the Papacy as the absolute head of the Church. He did much 
to develop the ritual, the music, and the services of the Church, 
and to increase and administer the possessions of the Church 
in Italy. But, above all, he appears as the umpire and pro- 
tector of the Italian population between the declining imperial 
power on one side, and the fierce half-heathen Lombards on 
the other. "Within the nominally imperial territory (what 
was called the Exarchate of Ravenna) his was the real authority. 
The temporal power of the Papacy is on the point of coming 
into existence. 

But while the Christian Church was widening its borders 
and strengthening its organization, there had sprung into 
The rise of existence a power against which it was to struggle 
Mahomedan- for power during the whole of the Middle Ages. 
ism. Mahomet was twenty years younger than the 

great Gregory. He was born in Mecca, and his family was 
one of importance there. The religion of the country at his 
birth was a strange mixture of ancient heathen rites, of 
Judaism, and of Christianity ; and in Mecca, worship was paid 
to a great stone, the famous Kaaba stone, which still remains 
there, a strange survival amidst the rites of Mahomedanism. 
Westward in Egyp|; and northward in Syria the Christians were 
bitterly divided by disputes on matters of doctrine. Mahomet 
preached his doctrines with passionate and contagious en- 
thus-iasm. Heathenism and Christianity were alike rejected by 
him. He preached one God with many prophets ; of whom 
Moses, Christ, and Mahomet were three, but Mahomet was the 
chief. He preached the doctrine of fate or predestination, and 
his converts found in that doctrine not a force deadening and 
repressing all effort, but a source of passionate energy. He 
preached, too, a higher personal and social morality ; theft, in- 
temperance, slavery, polygamy, were all attacked or regulated 
by his movement. In 622 he was driven from Mecca by his 



The Great Forces of the Early Middle Ages 137 

opponents. This is the Flight, the Hegira, from which all 
Mahomedans reckon their years. His disciples were at first 
few, but devoted. The oath that they took ran, " We will 
worship none but the one God. "\Ye will not steal, neither 
will we commit adultery, nor kill our children ; we will not 
Blander in any wise, neither will we disobey the prophet in 



WiWi .^^^ 




J^%k^Jj.J 



The Kaaba at Mecca. 



anything that is right." In 630 Mahomet re-entered Mecca 
in triumph and died in 632. 

The movement that he had inaugurated spread with extra- 
ordinary rapidity. The soldiers of Islam (the word means 
" resignation to the will of God ") were inspired by unques- 
tioning faith and unquenchable ardour, and on the death of 
Mahomet, Mahomedanism entered on its most militant phase. 
Before the rise of the new faith the Eastern Empire had 
seemed full of warlike vigour under the Emperor Heraclius ; 



138 Outlines of European History 

but now province after province was torn away. Syria was 
lost in 634 ; Jerusalem was taken by the Caliph Omar in 637, 
and Persia fell about the same time. Egypt was conquered in 
640. Then there came a lull in the struggle ; but fifty years 
later the stream of conquest flowed irresistibly on. In 695 
Africa and Carthage fell after a weak resistance : the Arian 
Yandals welcomed the Mahomedans. At last, in 711, the 
Mahomedan army, under Tarik, crossed the straits to which 
his name has given the name of Gibraltar, and in two 
years all Spain was in Mahomedan hands. In Spain, as in 
Africa and Italy, the imperial revival had weakened the power 
of resistance in the country. But the Yisigoths seemed 
incapable of establishing any stable government. So the 
Mahomedan wave rolled up to the Pyrenees, and the question, 
all-important for European civilization, had now to be settled. 
Was there any power beyond the Alps that was capable of 
checking the inpouring torrent ? The condition of Gaul, 
therefore, now demands our attention. 

We have carried on the history of Italy and the East as far 
as the end of the sixth century ; but we must return to the 
Gaul in the fifth in order to understand how the Prankish 
fifth century, monarchy championed the cause of Christianity 
and turned back the tide of Mahomedan conquest. 

If we look at the political geography of the north-west of 
the Roman Empire about 476, we see the xinglo-Saxons had 
settled in the south of Britain ; the south of Gaul and the 
north of Spain were occupied by the Yisigothic monarchy ; the 
Rhone lands were occupied by the Burgundians. The Roman 
standard and the imperial name were still maintained (but not 
for long) by Syagrius on both banks of the Seine. The 
middle and lower banks of the Rhine were in the hands of the 
Pranks, and the Pranks were roughly divided into two divi- 
sions — the Salians, who lived near to the ocean, and the Ri- 
puarians, whose centre was near to Cologne. 

The Pranks were already known as fierce and brave soldiers. 

More than once they had raided the Roman Empire, and had 

_ shown themselves much more cruel and much less 

receptive of civilization than the Goths. They 

lay' still on the very outskirts of what had once been the Roman 



The Great Forces of the Early Middle Ages 139 

Empire, and there was nothing which indicated the great 
destiny that was in store for them. 

In 481 Clovis (the name is variously written Chlodovech, 
or Clovis, or Ludwig, or Louis) became their king. He was 
a Saliau Frank, but he forced the Eipaarians to submit to 
him. He turned against Syagrius and destroyed the last 
remnant of the Eoman Empire north of the Alps (486). He 
defeated the Yisigoths and occupied their land as far as the 
Garonne. He defeated the Alemanni ; and his marriage with 
a Burgundian princess gave him great influence in the 
Burgundian land. He was the supreme power in Gaul ; and, 
if Theodoric's rule in Italy was more firmly rooted and better 
organized, it was Theodoric alone who was his rival in Western 
Europe. 

Thus before his death, in 511, he made the Franks into a 
great power, and they never ceased to be one ; and yet his con- 
version to Catholic Christianity probably influenced i^e conver- 
the future of the Franks even more than his con- sion of King: 
quests. It was in 496 that he accepted baptism ; Clovis. 
and that he did so was due to the influence of his Burgundian 
wife, Clotilda. He had declared that he would follow the 
Christians' God, if that God would give him victory in battle 
against the Alemanni ; and when the victory was won he kept 
his word. Henceforth the organization and the intelligence of 
the Church (whose rivalry and opposition had been so fatal to 
the Yisigoths, Ostrogoths, and Vandals) were thrown on th^ 
side of the King of the Franks ; and the union, sometimes 
interrupted but always re-established, supplies us with the 
master-key to the success and the permanence of the Frankish 
state. 
\ But the Franks, upon the death of Clovis, fell rapidly from 
\ the unity and strength which they had possessed during his 
jreign, and the Frankish kingdom did not regain j.^. . 
If or two centuries the position which it held under tion of the 
/the founder of its greatness. As we have seen in King-dom of 
the case of the Gothic states, all depended upon C^o^is. 
I the personal character of the ruler ; the constitution was en- 
/ tirely traditional, and there could be no guarantee for its per- 
manence. During these next two centuries the disruptive 



"^ 



140 Outlines of European History 

forces gained the upper hand in Frankland. The lands were 
divided amon^ different rulers, and their rivalries and antag- 
onisms seemed to portend the breaking up of the Frankish 
power. The northern territory of the Franks was divided 
-into Austrasia (the lands of the Moselle and the Rhine) and 
Neustria (the western lands). In Austrasia Germanic ideas 
and tendencies prevailed, while Neustria was more civilized 
and more influenced by ideas drawn from Roman and Latin 
sources. The conflict between these two divisions fills up a 
large part of the sixth century. 

During the seventh century a strange new force began to 
emerge. The power of the monarchy was gradually effaced 
The Mayors by that of the Mayors of the Palace : much of 
of the Palace, the future of Europe turns upon this change, 
which deserves careful examination. The first dynasty of 
Frankish kings is known as the Merovingian, the name being 
derived from Meroving, a fabled ancestor of Clovis. The kings 
of this dynasty continued to occupy the throne down to the year 
751. But their real power became constantly smaller, and by 
their side there rose up the authority of the mayors of the palace. 
The mayors were nominally servants of the Crown, who at 
first held quite subordinate duties, but came to be first the 
chief servants and then the practical masters of their nominal 
kings. History affords many instances of the nominal servant 
really holding sway over his so-called master and chief. We 
have seen how all-important were the great soldiers of the last 
days of the Western Empire, and how unimportant were the 
emperors themselves ; we may see something of the same sort 
in the relations between the Kings and Prime Ministers of 
England. But the relation between the Merovingian kings 
and their mayors of the palace is the most striking instance 
of this kind. After the death of Dagobert, in 638, there was 
no Merovingian king of any importance ; and soon after this 
the office of mayor of the palace became hereditary, and the 
mayors form a new dynasty alongside of and superior to 
the Merovingian kings. The great founder of the fortunes 
^E of the dynasty of mayors was Pip^irL ^^ S^jj^talj mayor of 
i_ !^ps, the palace to the Merovingian King^of Austrasia. In 687 
-• ' he defeated the Neustrian armies, and united Frankland again 



The Rise of the Medieval Empire 141 

under one chief. He died in 714, and was succeeded in his 
office bj Charles, afterwards famous in history as Charles 
Martel (Charles the Hammer), tS^f^^y^^^^^ ■- 

The rule of Saint Benedict is in Henderson's Documents. For 
Mahomet, see Stanley Lane Poole's Speeclies and Table Talk of 
Mohammad, and the Life of Mahomet, by Margoliouth, in the Heroes of 
the Nations. For the Franks, Hodgkin's Italy and her Livaders, and 
Kitchin's History of France. 



CHAPTER V 
The Rise of the Medieval Empire 

Mahomedans defeated at Tours .,,,«. 732 

Pippin, King of the Franks 751 

Charlemagne, Emperor. Christmas Day . . 800 

Charles Maktel is one of the great names in medieval 
history. It is difficult to remember that, all during his life- 
time, there was a king living to whom he owed Charles 
nominal obedience. In effect he was king of the Martel. 
Franks, and the great Frankish dynasty which was to succeed 
the Merovingian — the so-called Carolingian — may be said to 
have begun to reign even during his lifetime. 

Within the limits of the kingdom that he inherited he 
vastly strengthened the power of the Crown, which was, in fact, 
his own power. The nobles, and especially the almost inde- 
pendent dukes, were beaten down, and, in consequence, Charles 
ruled with a strong centralized power which had not been 
known since the death of Clovis. 

He deserved his title of Charles " the Hammer " by the 
blows he struck against the foreign enemies of the Franks. 
Even when he inherited it the territory of the ^j^g ^^_ 
Franks stretched far east of the Ehine ; but homedans 
Charles drove the limits of Frankish power further defeated at 
east by a series of wars against Saxons and ^°"^^ ^732). 
Bavarians. It was, however, not upon Saxons or Bavarians, 



142 Outlines of European History 

but upon the Mahomedans that his heaviest and most famous 
blow fell — a blow, the effects of which are traceable in every 
part of Western Europe. We have seen how the Mahomed an 
power had spread irresistibly along the north of Africa, had 
^\ ^ 1 I . crossed the Straits of Gibraltar, and had reached the Pyrenees. 
Now this barrier was overleaped, and in 725 the Moors over- 
ran Southern France : Carcassonne, Mmes, and Autun were 
taken. In material force the Cross seemed clearly unequal 
to a struggle with the Crescent. In 732 Abderrab.^n^ fell 
upon Aquitania, which lay between the Garonne an"^ the 
Loire. Its ruler appealed to Charles, and he, feeling that 
his own Prankish territories were in danger, led his army 
to encounter the Mahomedans. The great battle, usually 
called the battle of Tours, though it was fought nearer to 
Poitiers, ended, after a long and desperate struggle, in the 
withdrawal of the Moors. It proved a decisive victory. The 
tide of Moorish and Mahomedan conquest henceforward ebbed 
from Western Europe. The Moors were quickly driven out 
of Southern France, and the balance of strength in all 
struggles between them and the Franks clearly lay with the 
Christian power. 

This victory — the most important won by a Christian 
power over the Moslem since the beginning of the Mahomedan 
Charles movement — made Charles Martel at once the 

Marteiand greatest of European rulers, and the special 
the Papacy, champion of the Christian faith. It served 
to knit still closer the bonds which had from the first con- 
nected the Franks with the Papacy ; and Charles's services 
to the Christian Church did not stop there. The eighth 
century was a period of great missionary enterprises in 
Europe. A century and a half earlier England had been 
won to Christianity by the efforts of Gregory and Augustine, 
and now missionaries from England showed the zeal of their 
faith by spreading it among the German races north and east 
of the Rhine. Saint AYillibrord had been the successful 
preacher of Christianity in the low countries on either side of 
the lower course of the Rhine, and Saint Boniface, an English 
monk born in Devonshire, first worked under Saint Willibrord 
at Utrecht, and then, with wonderful zeal and success, preached 



The Rise of the Medieval Empire 143 

Christianity beyond the Ehine, especially to the Saxons. He 
was supported in his efforts by the authority of Charles Martel, 
and the great " mayor " and the great missionary together won 
wonderful victories for the Christian Church and the Papal 
power. The Papacy and the Prankish power were everywhere 
allies, to their immense mutual advantage : and soon their 
connection was to become even closer and clearer. 

We are approaching the time when the Prankish mayors 
of the palace became first kings of Prankland and then 
emperors. The causes which led up to this all- jhe new- 
important change are plain. The Prankish Prankish 
Mayors were powerful, the popes were powerful, Monarchy, 
and yet each had need of the other. The royal and imperial 
titles were the payment which the popes made to the Prankish 
mayors for the independence and power which the Papacy 
received at the hands of the Prankish rulers. 

Consider carefully the position of the Papacy in Italy. 
The Church had been growing continuously since the days 
of Gregory the Great : its organization had vastly Position of 
improved, its borders in the west were wider ; the the Papacy 
spread of the monastic system had been the chief ^° ^^^^y- 
cause of its strength. But if the Church, as a whole, was strong 
and triumphant in the eighth century, the Papacy in Italy was 
surrounded by difficulties and dangers. We have seen that 
the dominant race in Italy was the Lombards, and since last 
we saw them their power had considerably extended. The 
hold of the Eastern Empire upon Italy had been almost shaken 
off. Eavenna was still held by the Imperialists, and certain 
territories in the south of Italy ; but there could be no question 
that both in the north and the south of Italy the Lombards 
were the masters and almost without a rival. Now the 
Lombards had become Christians of the orthodox Catholic 
type, but the popes hated them with the utmost bitterness. 
No words were strong enough to describe them and their 
crimes. They w^ere " lepers," " children of the devil ; " they 
are habitually called "the unspeakable" Lombards. The 
struggle was not really a religious or theological one, but 
political, for the Papacy was, now and always, jealoas of any 
power in Italy that seemed able to override the Church, To 



144 Outlines of European History 

what quarter could the popes look for help against the " un- 
speakable " Lombards ? The strength and the orthodoxy of 
the Franks, as well as their past services to the Church, marked 
them out as the champions of the Papacy ; and in 739 Charles 
Martel had been appealed to, but his hands were too full, and 
he refused to come. The appeal was soon made again, and 
with results that influenced the whole Middle Ages. 

The trouble with the Lombards was not the only one that 
occupied the attention of the popes. Their relations with the 
The Papacy emperors at Constantinople were also difficult, 
and the The emperors still claimed supremacy in Italy, 

Eastern and exercised a certain influence over the popes. 

Empire. rpj^^ distance of the seat of the empire from Rome 

made it in some ways a desirable ally of the Papacy ; but the 
empire was growing weak, and could not help, and, worse 
than that, its orthodoxy was at this time worse than doubtful. 
There was not, as yet, any schism between the Eastern and 
Western Churches, but the emperor's presence in Constanti- 
nople had, from the first, given the imperial authority a pre- 
ponderating influence over the Church there. And now, in 
the first half of the eighth century, there broke out in Con- 
stantinople, mainly through the influence of the Emperor Leo 
the Isaurian, a religious movement in direct opposition to the 
practices and doctrines of the Roman See. This is called the 
" iconoclastic " or image-breaking movement. It was probably 
partly due to the influence of Mahomedanism, and in some 
respects it anticipated certain features of Protestantism. The 
" iconoclasts " rejected the worship of images, the intercession 
of the Virgin Mary, the celibacy of priests, and many of the 
practices of monks. This movement was victorious, often 
with fanatical excesses, down to 785, when Catholic orthodoxy 
was again restored by the Empress Irene. But the relations 
between the empire and the Papacy continued to be strained, 
and the orthodoxy of the empire was still suspected in Rome. 

We have seen, therefore, that the Prankish sword could 
render great service to the Papal throne ; and if we now return 
Pippin, King to the history of Frankland, we shall see that the 
of the Franks. Prankish mayors stood in great need of help 
which the popes could give them. Charles Martel died in 741, 



The Rise of the Medieval Empire 145 p. j 

and his two sons, Pippin and Carloman, divided his dominions T"/j£" S/^^ 

between them for a time. There seemed a real danger that 

the Frankish dominions would suffer from disruption. But 

soon Carloman abdicated(and retired into a monastery, and 

Pippin ruled over all Frankland. The shadow of the 

Merovingian kingship still subsisted, but it must have been 

clear that it could not subsist much longer. For six years 

there was no king ; but then it seemed best to regularize the 

position of Pippin, and a king. Child erick III., was appointed. 

In 751, however, the time was at last fully come for this 

mockery of kingship to cease. We are surprised that it had 

lasted so long ; but tradition was powerful in early medieval 

societies, and it might be regarded as an act of impiety, as well 

as of usurpation, to move from the throne of the Franks the 

descendant of King Clovis. It was under such circumstances 

that the indefinite powers and prestige of the Papacy could be 

of great service to the faithful " mayor " of the Franks. The 

pope was consulted as to the proposed step, and he answered 

that it was right that he who had the power should also have 

the title. So the deed was done and the change made. 

Childerick III. was deposed and sent into a monastery. Pippin 

was raised upon the shields of his nobles, and was anointed 

king by the English monk and missionary, Boniface. This was ; 

in 751. Two years later. Pope Stephen himself came to the/ 

court of Pippin, and crowned him a second time. Henceforth 

his dynasty — which is usually called the Carolingian, from the 

great Charles who was soon to succeed Pippin — reigned by the 

double title of power and the sanction of the Church. 

The pope had accomplished his part of the bargain. It was 
now for Pippin to do his, for there had been an imphed bar- 
gain. In return for the royal title and the oil of j^^ pippm 
anointing, Pippin was to relieve the Papacy from and the 
the pressure of the " unspeakable " Lombards, and Papacy, 
to grant to the pope an independent power in Italy. So, in 
754, Pippin and the army of the Franks invaded Italy. Aistulf, 
the Lombard king, was defeated. He was compelled to cede 
to the Papacy, in the person of Pope Stephen, one-third of the 
Lombard territory in Italy, and to pay a yearly tribute. This 
was not the end of the controversy between the popes and the 

L 



146 Outlines of European History 

Lombards, by any means ; but by this act the Papacy gained a 
distinct temporal power in Italy. The popes are henceforth 
not merely the spiritual heads of the Church, they are also 
political rulers of certain territories ; and the history of the 
Middle Ages is henceforth full of their ambitions and struggles 
as temporal rulers. 

King Pippin lived yet for fourteen years, and fought and 

administered successfully in his dominions. Upon his death 

, in 768, his territories were at first shared between 

!A.cc6ssion 01 

Charles the ^^^ two SOUS, Charles and Carloman ; but Carloman 
Great (Charle- soon died of disease, and henceforward Charles 
magne). reigned alone. He was one of the world's greatest 

and most important rulers, and was called by his own and the 
next generation Charles the Great, though to us he is more 
usually known as Charlemagne. 

" With Charlemagne," it has been said, " the destruction of 
the ancient world ends ; with Charlemagne the building up of 
the modern world begins." He was of pure German 
ofthe^work origin,spokeaGermantongue,andusuallyresided in 
of Charle- German lands. But there is no country in Western 
magne. Europe which has not been directly, or indirectly, 

influenced by his career. He pushed the dominion of the 
Franks far into Eastern Germany ; he extended the boundaries 
of the Prankish power into Italy and into Spain ; he founded 
the medieval empire ; he broke the darkness and ignorance of 
the early Middle Ages by stimulating literature and education ; 
and at each point his work was not transitory, but permanent. 
He co-operated with the forces of the time, and the very 
foundations of our present European life are stamped Avibh his 
name. He was himself tall, strong, and agile beyond the 
average of mankind. There was in his character a religious 
and exalted strain, which lifted him out of the sensuality and 
grossness of the time and made the man worthy of the work 
which he accomplished. It will be best, in considering his work, 
to neglect chronological order, and deal with (1) his conquests, 
(2) the establishment and government of the empire, (8) his 
services to culture and education. 

He was constantly engaged in wars during the whole of his 
reign, and, though he does not seem to have shown any great 




Charles the Great. 

{From the Painting by Alhrecht Di/rer.) 

Dtlrer liTeci 1471-1528, and this picture of Charlemagne is purely imaginary ; but Charles, 
during the later Middle Ages, became a hero of legend, and this picture will recall 
not only the actual king and emperor, but also the fabulous hero who plays so 
Important a part in romance down to the time of Ariosto. 



148' Outlines of European History 

^3 C^M'^jgeZius in the condact of his operations, his energy and 
organization brought them all in the end to snccess. He did 
not always conduct his wars in person, and was well served by 
The wars of those whom he chose for command over his troops. 
Charles the Some of his wars were fought to reduce the nominal 
Great. dependants of the Frankish monarchy to real sub- 

jection. Thus the Dukes of Aquitaine and Bavaria were de- 
feated and their territories put under direct Frankish rule. But 
his more important expeditions were those in which he asserted 
the supremacy of the Christian Frankish power over the heathen 
and barbarous lands adjoining his own. All Spain, as we have 
seen, was in the hands of the Saracens ; but they were now 
weakened by civil wars, and thus weakened were attacked by 
Charlemagne. His conquests in Spain were of no great extent, 
but a portion of Spanish territory was torn from the Mahome- 
dans, and for this reason Charlemagne is reckoned the founder 
of modern Spain. 

His campaigns against the Saxons were far more prolonged 
and more important. By Saxony we must understand a district 
Wars ag-ainst Very different from that which bears that name 
the Saxons, upon the modern map of Germany. The Saxons 
of those days lived on the low-lying lands round the mouths of 
the Ems, the Weser, and the Elbe, a land of heath and marsh 
and forest ; and the people themselves were fierce and warlike, 
attached to their own religion, and, in spite of the work of 
Boniface, bitterly opposed to the Christian missionaries. The 
war between the Franks and the Saxons was an extremely fierce 
one. The work had to be done over and over again, for the 
Saxons again and again repudiated the submission they had 
made. On both sides there were cruelty and massacre, and 
when Charles conquered he always imposed Christianity as a 
sign and test of submission. At last the Saxon champion 
AVidukind was forced to surrender and accept baptism. 
Monasteries were planted in the conquered country, and the 
new faith and the new government sank deep into the life 
of the people. "We shall see further on that Charlemagne's 
imperial work was a century later carried on by the Saxon race. 

Charles fought, too, against the Avars of modern Hungary, 
penetrated their huge fortifications, and forced their ruler to 



The Rise of the Medieval Empire 



149 




150 Outlines of European History 

accept baptism. He struck, too, against the Slavonic peoples 
that lay to the east of the Elbe — the Abotrites, Slavs, and 
Serbs — and forced them to recognize the supremacy of the 
Frankish power. 

Lastly, we must turn to the campaigns of Charles against 
the Lombards, which led to his assumption of the imperial 
Charles ^^^^^' ^® ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ King Pippin had fought 

and the against the Lombards, and how he had reduced 

Lombards. them to a condition of loose dependence on the 
Frankish monarchy, and how the hostility of the Franks to 
the Lombards was closely connected with the alliance between 
the Franks and the Papacy. The King of the Lombards 
during Charles's reign was Desiderius (Didier), and the Pope 
Hadrian lived on uneasy terms with him. Charles, too, had 
his grievances against the Lombard king. He had been 
married to the daughter of Desiderius, but had put her away ; 
and this, with other causes, led to the outbreak of war in 773 
The last hour of the old Lombard monarchy had now arrived. 
King Desiderius was besieged in Pavia and taken prisoner. 
The separate Lombard monarchy was now abolished ; and 
Charles, in 774, assumed the title of King of the Lombards 
and Patrician of the Romans. The Pope received from 
Charlemagne an increase of territory and power. 

It will be seen that this campaign is mentioned quite out of 
place. The wars against the Saxons, Avars, and Saracens, all 
Charles's as- ^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^ overthrow of the Lombards. But 
sumption of the Lombard conquest led up, nearly twenty-live 
the imperial years later, to a momentous change in Charles's 
^^^ ^* title. Clearly, Charles became during these years 

the one great power in Europe. Where could be found a power 
that was in any way a rival to that of the conqueror of Saxons, 
Saracens, Avars, Slavs, and Lombards? The emperor at 
Constantinople was nothing in comparison to him. There 
had been no emperor in Italy for three hundred years ; but 
the memory of the empire still remained. The imperial title 
was known to be the greatest of all ; and no title was too 
high for this all-conquering King of the Franks. 

The royal title had come to Pippin from the pope ; from 
the same source the title of emperor came to Charles ; and as 



The Rise of the Medieval Empire 151 

in 751, so now ifc was in gratitude, and as a reward for services 
rendered, that the pope gave the higher title. 

Pope Leo III. was reigning in 799. After his election 
he had been savagely attacked and cruelly treated by the 
relatives of the late pope, Hadrian, for the Papacy had come 
to be a subject of fierce conteution among the noble families 
of Rome. Pope Leo TIL had been wounded and imprisoned 
by his opponents. He escaped with difficulty and fled to 
Charles, imploring his help. So in 800 Charles came to Italy 
and Eome, and all resistance collapsed before him. Leo was 
restored to the Papal throne. The service had been rendered, 
and the reward soon came. On Christmas Day, 800, Charles 
attended mass in St. Peter's Church at Rome, and then and 
there the pope placed the imperial crown on his brows and 
saluted him with the title of Emperor. 

Thus was revived the imperial title in "Western Europe, 
and the title did not disappear for the next thousand years. 
The change was in truth a change only in name. The new 
Charles had been quite as powerful as king as he empire, 
was as emperor. The new title was merely the recognition of 
the position that Charles had actually secured by his conquests 
and his organization. But words are sometimes in themselves 
a power, and this new word "Emperor" applied to the 
Prankish kings was destined to exercise a vast influence over 
all the Middle Ages. 

Charles showed himself far in advance of his age in his 
organization and government of his vast dominions. He tried 
to give them a really efficient and centralized government, and 
to avoid the looseness and disorganization which had been the 
bane of the other states founded on the ruins of the Roman 
Empire, and which were later to ruin his empire in the hands 
of his weaker successors. His " Court " was organized as a 
sort of administrative and judicial council. The power of the 
great " dakes " was broken up, and in their place were put a 
number of comites, or " counts," who were not, under Charles, 
the great dignitaries that they became later, but rather the 
subordinate agents of the crown for purposes of local govern- 
ment. A special feature of Charles's government was the 
creation of certain officers called Missi Dominici — "royal agents" 



152 



Outlines of European History 



we may translate the phrase — whose duty ib was to travel 
through his vast territories and see that the counts and other 
officials were really carrying out the will of their master. The 
legislation of Charles was also remarkable. A series of laws 
(Capitularies) was enacted dealing with every part of the 
social and religious life of the state. 




The Minster at Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen) of which the round church 
at the left was built by Charlemagne as a Palace Chapel. 



We must note, lastly, how, in the reign of Charles, there 
arose a real though short-lived revival of literature and educa- 
The Intel- tion. It seemed as though the confusion of the 
lectuai revival, barbarian invasions was to pass away and some- 
thing of the old Roman culture was to return. A number 
of learned men were gathered at the court of Charles, of w^hom 
Alcuin of York was the chief. Schools were founded : literature 



The Disruption of the Carolingian Empire 153 

was patronized ; the services and the music of the Church 
received careful attention. Edicts were issued enjoining upon 
the monks care in the keeping of their books. But the interest 
of Charles went beyond merely ecclesiastical learning. He had 
a collection made of the traditional songs and sagas of the 
Frankish people, and himself collected a considerable library in 
his capital at Aachen, where he built himself a great palace 
and a cathedral. 

Doubtless much of his work was premature, and some of 
his aims were unattainable. His vast dominions could not 
really be governed from one centre, and their disruption could 
not have been prevented, even by a line of capable successors. 
But, none the less, his ideas and his example were fruitful. 
With his reign the darkest hour of the Middle Ages was past. 

In addition to books already mentioned, Hudglcin's Charles the Great 
(Foreign Statesmen), and H. W. C. Davis' Charlemagne. Early Lives 
of Charlemagne (by Eginbard and tbe Monk of Saint Gall), translated 
by J.. J. Grant. Bryce's Holy Roman Empire is of great value from this 
point onwards. 




CHAPTER VI 
The Disruption of the Carolingian Empire 

Death of Charles the Great 814 

Partition of the Empire 843 

Beginning of Separation between Eastern^ ^^ 
and Western Churches j 

The great Charles died in 814, and his dominions descended 
undivided to his only surviving son " Lewis the Pious ; " but it 
was soon apparent how much of the greatness of Lewis the 
the Frankish monarchy and empire had depended pious and the 
upon the personal qualities of Charles Martel, and future of the 
King Pippin, and Charles the Great, king and ^^^^^^' 
emperor. The greatness of the Franks was quickly at an 
end. We have now to see how the empire broke up and was 
re-formed on another basis and by another race ; how by its 



154 Outlines of European History- 

side there grew up new and independent monarchies — France, 
England, Spain ; how, meanwhile, the Church continuously 
developed, in spite of crises of weakness and disgrace ; how, 
when the Church had reached its highest point of development, 
she came into fierce conflict with the restored empire ; and 
how, in this conflict, the Church and the empire both sufl^ered 
loss and transformations which brought the Middle Ages to 
an end and ushered in the modern world. 

The empire of Charles did not remain united for thirty- 
years after his death. The disruptive forces were clearly 
Causes tend- ^^^^^^^^5 ®^^^ during the reign of Lewis the Pious. 
ing to the There were civil wars which were only terminated 
disruption of \)j concessions ; but, more important than these 
the empire. ^^^q wars, certain permanent causes of disunion 
showed themselves. It proved impossible for the government 
to retain the supervision of all the parts of the empire. The 
counts and other local ralers established a practical indepen- 
dence. Worst of all, a new and terrible danger appeared. The 
Attacks of Northmen began to ravage the coasts and pene- 
the North- trate far into the empire. These sea-robbers had 
"^^"- already threatened in the days of the great Charles, 

and had been beaten off with difficulty. Bat in the reign of 
his weak successors they could not be beaten off at all. Their 
ships were the dread of every sea-coast and river-town along 
the shores of the German Ocean, and before long these sea- 
rovers passed the Straits of Gibraltar ; and Italy, Southern 
France, and the great islands of the Mediterranean were open 
to their attacks. They were recklessly brave, cruel in the 
hour of victory, uncivilized, and heathen. Wherever they 
came they stamped out the beginnings of civilization which 
were showing themselves as the result of the policy of Charles. 
They retarded by many decades the development of Western 
Europe ; though, when civilized and Christianized themselves, 
they contributed much to the organization of government and 
even to the arts of life. Their first heavy blows fell upon the 
territories of Lewis the Pious in 836, when they took Antwerp 
and Utrecht. The central government was unable to defend 
the extremities, and each district had to organize its own defence 
as best it could. For fifty years and more the attacks of the 



The Disruption of the Carolingian Empire 155 

Northmen continued. Thej destroyed the culture of northern 
England, and during the same period there were few coast- 
towns in Western Europe which were not destroyed or threatened 
by them. Their worst ravages were in 881, when they struck 
into the very heart of what had once been Charles the Great's 
empire, and burnt Maestricht, Liege, Cologne, Bonn, and even, 
the imperial city, Aachen, itself. 

The empire could not defend its subjects against these 




Bemains of a Viking Ship, from a Cairn at Gokstad. Now in the 
University at Christiania. 

(^From Gardiner's "Student's History of England.") 



blows, and rapidly disintegrated in consequence. There was 
no open division during the reign of Lewis the Partition of 
Pious ; but at his death there were three sons to the empire, 
dispute the inheritance — Lothair, Lewis, and Charles. Lothair 
was recognized as emperor, but there was constant strife among 
them, and at last, in 843, it was decided to partition the 
dominions of the empire. The imperial title could, indeed, 
belong ouly to one ; but the actual government of the territory 
of the empire was divided among all three. The accompanying 



156 Outlines of European History 

map (p. 149) will show how this was done. Lothair had, along 
with the imperial title, the central portion stretching from 
the mouth of the Ehine southward through Switzerland into 
Italy ; all to the east of that belonged to Lewis, with the title 
of King ; Charles, also as king, ruled over all that lay to the 
west. In this partition we see the beginnings of France and 
Germany. The territory that lay between them (with the 
name of Lotharingia) has been fiercely disputed between these 
two powers almost ever since the acceptance of the treaty of 
Verdun. 

But the division was soon followed by others. The Carol- 
ingian Empire (as that of Charlemagne is called) dissolved 
Dissolution of far more rapidly than the old Eoman Empire, and 
the empire, more rapidly than the Merovingian monarchy of 
the Franks, which it had displaced. No new '* mayors of the 
palace " rose up to overshadow the emperors ; but the attacks 
of the Northmen and the disruptive tendencies within the 
empire broke it up into even smaller portions, until a con- 
dition of complete political chaos seemed likely to ensue. Then 
a new race — the recently conquered Saxons — came to the front, 
and became the centre round which was built up such political 
order as the next three centuries knew. We must not follow 
the process of decay. The imperial title belonged now to 
France, now to Germany, and now to Lotharingia. But before 
the end of the century it was nothing but an empty dignity, 
and at last it died out completely. The empire of Charles may 
be said to have come to an end in 888. 

It was not only the empire that was breaking up, the 
kingdoms that had been formed out of it were breaking up 
The begin- -^^^0. The age of feudalism began, of which 
nings of decentralization is one of the chief characteristics, 

feudalism. Feudalism was a very complex system of society, 
based more upon custom than upon written law. But its 
origin and outstanding features may be easily understood. The 
central government was hopelessly broken down ; little help 
could be looked for from it, either in repelling the Northmen 
or in maintaining internal order. Society thereupon organized 
itself round the strongest force that remained ; that force 
was found in the great landowner, who from his castle was 



The Disruption of the Carolingian Empire 157 

able to offer defiance to his enemies, and defend those who put 

their trust in him. So, as royal and imperial government 

broke up, feudal government formed itself. It was often 

oppressive, and became generally so ; but its origin is not to 

be found in oppression, nor in the mere assertion of force. Its 

origir, is to be found in the need of forming some sort of 

government in an age that was threatened with complete 

anarchy. The feudal nobleman became the real government 

of all the adjacent district. His neighbours were bound to 

give him their support in battle, to pay him certain dues on 

stated occasions, to accept his decision in cases of law. To 

f.hem the feudal lord was everything ; and if he had himself a 

stiperior, duke or king or emperor, to whom he was bound 

to yield allegiance, his dependents barely knew it. The feudal 

lord was everything . to them ; the distant duke or king or 

ernperor little more than a name. This form of society had 

its roots struck far into the past ; but it assumed definite shape 

in the ninth century in consequence of the dangers that were 

then threatening European civilization in the West. 

Amidst this political chaos the organization of the Church 

seemed the only stable and progressive force. It had, indeed, 

of late suffered very material losses of territory. ^. . . 

jDivision 
The Mahomedan conquest had cut off from the between the 

Church vast districts in Asia, and all Africa and Eastern and 
Spain ; and, in spite of the victories of Charles JX"^^^?^" 
Martel and Charles the Great, there seemed little 
chance of reconquering those lost lands. Another loss was 
threatened. The Eastern Empire had for long past been at 
variance with Eome. There were serious theological differences, 
and underneath these it is plain that there was political jealousy, 
which expressed itself in religious antagonism. The territories 
of the Eastern Empire were sadly shrunk ; but Constantinople 
still cherished the tradition of her past greatness, and refused 
to accept the primacy of Eome. In 866 a Synod at Constanti- 
nople made certain declarations that were in decided opposition 
to Papal orthodoxy ; in particular, it declared against the 
universal celibacy of the clergy and the Eoman doctrine of 
the " procession of the Holy Ghost from Father and Son." 
In spite of all subsequent attempts to heal the difference. 



158 Outlines of European History 

Rome and Constantinople were never again in real religious 
union. 

But if the territories over which the Catholic Church held 
sway were thus decreasing, her power in Western Europe was 
Growth of stronger than ever, her government was better 
the Catholic organized, and the claims of the Pope to a 
Church. monarchical power within the Church were more 

definitely put forward and more generally recognized. During 
the ninth century the claim of the Papacy to temporal power 
was supported by the appearance of documents, which are now 
recognized as forgeries, but then met with universal acceptance. 
Chief among these was the Donation of Constantine, a document 
which purported to be a gift to the pope of all the territories 
in the west of Europe that belonged to the empire. But 
such forged documents were rather the result than the cause of 
the Church's power. The spread of the monastic system vastly 
strengthened the Church, and for the present all that was best 
and wisest in Europe supported her claims and ambitions. 

But if the general condition of the Church was thus 
flourishing, there were serious difficulties in the way of the 
Dangers Papacy in Rome itself. True, the Lombards were 
threatening no longer a power capable of threatening the Holy 
the Papacy, g^g^ and the Prankish kings of Italy who had 
taken their place were friendly. But in the city of Rome 
itself there was great disorder, which was apt to be specially 
evident at the time of Papal elections. The city was divided 
among aristocratic factions, and these regarded the promotion 
of one of their number to the Papal See as the highest prize. 
The confusion was increased by the fact that the method of 
election to the Papacy was not as yet definitely laid down. 
Thus, while there was no interruption in the growth of the 
Church in "Western Europe, its head was the victim, the prize 
or the plaything of factions of the fiercest and most unscrupulous 
kind. As the Papacy had at an earlier date been rescued from 
the Lombards by the intervention of the Franks, so now 
another German power interfered to rescue the Papacy from 
different but quite as serious dangers. And the second inter- 
vention, like the first, led up to the re-establishment of the 
Empire. 



The Foundation of the Holy Roman Empire 159 

In addition to books already given, mention must be made of 
Zeller^s Histoire de France raconUe 'par les contemporains, in many 
small volumes. These contain a series of extracts in French from con- 
temporary chronicles illustrating French history from the beginning 
down to 1610. The Donation of Constantine is quoted in Henderson's 
Documents (see note to Ch. I.). 



CHAPTER VII 
The Foundation of the Holy Roman Empire 

Henry the Fowler 918 

Otto the Great, Emperor 962 

To understand the foundation of the Holy Roman Empire we 
must return to Germanj. A nominal union of the monarchy 
had been maintained, as we have seen ; but the real Condition of 
strength lay with the great feudal powers, the great Germany, 
dukes — stem-dukes, as they are sometimes called — who stood at 
the head of the great races of which Germany was composed. 
The names of these duchies were Saxony, Eranconia, Lorraine, 
Swabia, Bavaria. These would in all probability have broken off 
into complete and open independence had it not been for the 
danger of barbarian and heathen invasion which threatened 
from the East. Up to the year 918, the royal title remained 
in the Carolingian house, but when in that year King Conrad 
died, there was no descendant of Charles the Great left to take 
his place. Choice had therefore perforce to be made of a kino- 
from some new stock, and the choice fell upon Henry, Duke of 
Saxony, who is best known to history as Henry the Fowler. 

His accession to the throne of Germany marks an epoch in 
German and European history. With him the greatness of 
medieval Germany began. A capable ruler, repre- The future of 
senting and supported by a powerful and united the Germany 
race, now occupied the throne, and under his monarchy, 
management its power and splendour far eclipsed that of the 
effete descendants of the great Charles. At first the other 
great dukes yielded a merely nominal allegiance, but they 
were in due time forced into a genuine submission; the 



i6o Outlines of European History 

monarchy became the real government of Germany, and then 
the greatness of the German kingship received its crowning 
but dangerous glory when the Pope conferred on Henry's 
successor and son, Otto L, the imperial title. 

Otto I. (Otto the Great) succeeded his father in 936, and 
he carried out the policy of the Saxon kings of Germany to its 
Otto the most complete development. It is important to 

Great : His mark the chief lines on which it proceeded. First, 
rule of Ger- he vigorously opposed the independent claims of 
many. ^^^ stem-dukes, and his success, though not com- 

plete, was great. His own brother Henry joined himself to 
the opponents of monarchical power, and the king's efforts to 
overcome their resistance were long and painful. The dukes 
were not destroyed, but their power was much reduced. Next, 
Otto fought vigorously against the great national enemy, the 
Magyars — a race akin to but distinct from the Huns and the 
Avars — who had settled in Hungary, and were constantly 
threatening the German states by pushing up along the Danube. 
In 955 they were defeated with crushing and decisive effect at 
Augsburg, and they never again threatened Europe in nearly 
so dangerous a fashion. Thirdly, he introduced new methods 
of government, which resemble, to some extent, those of the 
Great Charles. His object was to find agents of government 
that should not try to assume independence of the Crown as 
the great duchies had done. He appointed Counts Palatine to 
defend the frontiers of Germany upon the west, and upon the east 
and south he created " marks," or border governments, to hold 
in check the Slavs, the Magyars, and the Italians. But in his 
Otto the Great government — and this gives us the key to much 
and the of the history of Germany during the next two cen- 

Church. turies — he relied chiefly upon ecclesiastics. They 

were the only educated class, and their close relation with the 
government of Germany dated back to the days of Charles 
Martel and King Pippin. But ecclesiastics were specially 
valuable as agents of King Otto, because their vows of 
celibacy prevented them from founding families of their own, 
and made it more possible for them to keep apart from the 
feudal nobility. Henceforth the connection between Church 
and monarchy was the closest possible. The bishops were the 



The Foundation of the Holy Roman Empire i6i 

prop and stay of the kingly power. Note, however, that the 
leading Churchmen were far less independent than they had 
been in the days of Charlemagne. They were the servants 
rather of the monarchy than of the pope ; the bishops were 
simply state officials. In the days of Pippin and the Great 
Charles, Church and State had been equal and mutually 
helpful allies. But now the Popes were too much occupied in 
and influenced by the local disputes of the city to exercise 
vigorous supervision over the Church as a whole, and there 
was a danger that the Church in Germany would sink under 
State control. The use which Otto made of ecclesiastics made 
him take an interest in Italian affairs, and subsequently carried 
him to the imperial title. 

All political unity had long disappeared from Italy. The 
King of Italy ruled in the north ; then came the Papal states : 
the southern part of the peninsula was shared itaiy in the 
between the Duke of Benevento, the lingering tenth century, 
remnant of the Eastern Empire, and the Saracens, who had of 
late settled on and mastered certain districts in the extreme 
south. In 951 King Otto was appealed to from Italy. 
Adelaide, widow of King Lothair, asked for his defence against 
a marriage with the son of the present king. It was a sufficient 
pretext. Otto invaded Northern Italy and mastered it without 
much difficulty. He was crowned King of Italy at Pavia, 
though King Berengar was still allowed to rule as his vassal. 
Thus Otto was now a neighbour of the Papacy. 

In 962 his intervention was asked for in the city of Eome 
itself. The faction fights of the city had reached an acute 
crisis. There was fighting within and without the otto the Great 
city. If the Papacy was to be rescued from its becomes 
shameful subservience to the factions of the city, emperor, 
it seemed that it could only be through the help of a foreign 
power. And, with this object, Pope John XII. appealed to 
Otto in 9 G 2. The king came, and Eome confessed its inability 
to resist him. Pope John XII. was restored to power, and 
then gave the reward which, doubtless, had been stipulated for 
beforehand. On February 2, 962, King Otto was crowned 
emperor, and with him the real medieval empire began, " the 
Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation." 

M 



1 62 Outlines of European History 

It is well to consider the causes and character of this 
famous event. It bears, as we have seen, considerable re- 
Thenew semblance to the raising of Charlemagne to the 
phase of the empire. In both cases the imperial title— lapsed, 
empire. \^^^ ]^j jjq nieans forgotten — was conferred by the 

pope on a power that had rendered the Church great service, 
and was obviously the first in Western Europe. But Otto's 
position was in many respects different from that of Charle- 
magne. The Great Charles had been a far more universal 
sovereign than Otto. He ruled over many races, and an 
extent of territory that fairly challenged comparison with the 
Eoman Empire ; while Otto, though a powerful sovereign, 
was essentially a German one. Charles and the pope had been 
allies on an equal footing ; but in the case of Otto the Papacy 
was sunk in deepest humiliation, and the details of Otto's 
sojourn in Italy show us how completely the emperor was the 
superior of the pope. 

The history of the next three centuries depends on the 
Italian policy of Otto. The German kingship was connected, 
Influence of henceforth, with the imperial title and great and 
the Italian valuable possessions south of the Alps, and it had 
connection on assumed an attitude of protection towards the 
the empire. E,oman See. It derived from this new connection 
great glory, but also great danger and ultimate ruin. Left to 
itself, the German monarchy might have founded a well- 
organized and stable state. But in the coming years the 
efforts and ambitions of the German kings were constantly 
turned to Italy, and, while Germany was in consequence 
neglected and allowed at last to fall again into feudal anarchy, 
the emperors found themselves involved in a desperate struggle 
with the Papacy, which destroyed the empire in aU but name. 

Hendersoii's Shcn-t History of Germany. Gregorovms'' Rome in the 
Middle Ages is a valuable work of refere«ice for most of the medieval 
period. TouVs Empire and Papacy is the best short guide up to the 
middle of the thirteenth century. 



The Empire and the Papacy 163 



CHAPTER VIII 

The Empire and the Papacy to the Eve of the 
Great Struggle between them 

Battle of Civitate 1053 

Gregory VII. (Hildebrand), Pope . . 1073 
Robert Guiscard in Italy 1046-1085 

The empire (in which is included the kingdom of Germany) 
and the Papal power were the two chief forces in the Europe of 
the tenth century ; but other powers were rising -phe chief 
up, destined first to rival them, and then to thrust forces of the 
them down from their position of first import- ^^°^^ century, 
ance. France, under a new dynasty, was preparing for great 
destinies ; the Eastern Empire was still a power that had to 
be reckoned with, though its force and its territory were alike 
diminishing ; in England a Danish dynasty had displaced 
the Saxon kings, and in another century the Norman invasion 
would come to give a new shape to English history. But for 
the present we must not look at these great events. The 
empire and the Papacy — their alliances, rivalries, and combats 
— furnish us with the central thread of medieval history, and 
it will be well to follow it until we are through the Middle 
Ages and in sight of the modern world. 

At the end of the tenth century empire and Papacy were 
allies. The empire had saved the Papacy from degradation, 
and the ofiicials of the Papal Church were in The empire 
Germany the most efficient and faithful of the and the 
servants of the empire. But the protection which Papacy, 
the emperors gave to the popes was perilously near to patron- 
age, and implied superiority ; and as soon as the Papacy was 
strong enough, it would try to reverse the relationship. 

But emperor succeeded emperor, and for close on a century, 
from the refoundation of the empire, there was no sign of the 
coming struggle. After Otto I. came Otto IL, 
and he was succeeded in 983 by Otto III. In ^^^° ^"* 
his reign the dangerous consequence of the imperial title 
became apparent. His two predecessors had given their chief 



1 64 Outlines of European History 

attention to Germany, and were primarily kings of that country. 
But Otto III. was not inclined to be Holy Eoman Emperor for 
nothing. He fixed his residence in Rome ; he adopted some- 
thing of the palace ceremonial of Constantinople ; he dreamed 
of universal empire. And his scheme and ideas pleased neither 
the Germans nor the Italians. Rebellions in Rome drove him 
back to Germany, and there his absence in Italy had allowed 
the frontiers of the empire to recede and its prestige to wane. 

The mistakes of Otto III. were not repeated by his three 
successors (Henry II., Conrad II., and Henry III.). Their 
Henry II., chief attention was given to the reality of the 
Conrad II., German monarchy, not to the fantastic imperial 
Henry III. fi^Q^ ^nd during their reigns Germany developed 
on fruitful and promising lines. The central government was 
strengthened as against the great nobles, the frontiers of 
Germany were enlarged, and, as of old, the monarchy worked 
through the agency of the great ecclesiastics, and both Church 
and State in Germany seemed to profit from the alliance. 
The great cities of Germany began to grow. No state in 
Europe seemed better assured of a successful future than 
Germany in the middle of the eleventh century. But in 1056 
Henry lY. (a boy, six years of age) succeeded, and the develop- 
ment of the empire was rudely interrupted. 

During the greater part of the century which we have 
thus reviewed, the Papacy seemed little likely to assert itself 
Condition of against the empire. The intervention of Otto I. 
the Papacy, had not sufficed to bring order into the Papal 
elections and the government of the Papal state. The Papal 
throne seemed still the prize of the aristocratic factions of the 
city of Rome. There are reports of the Papacy being sold 
during this period. At one time there were three claimants to 
the Papal title. 

We have seen how great the service of the monasteries to 
the Papacy had been ; and it was from the monasteries that 
The ciuniac help came again, help which in two centuries 
revival. carried the Papacy to its extreme of power. The 

history of the monasteries is a history of decadence and revival, 
and in the tenth century there had come one of the most 
important of monastic revival movements. Its centre was 



The Empire and the Papacy 165 

Clugny, near Macon in Burgundy, and the whole movement is 
known as the Oluniac movement. It was in its main features 
a revival merely ; that is, it aimed at reviving and reinforcing 
the half-forgotten ideals of St. Benedict. But the Cluniao 
monasteries, though they belonged to the Benedictine order, 
differed in certain important respects from the early Bene- 
dictines. The Benedictine monasteries had been each a self- 
governing community, but the Cluniac houses were closely 
united, so that the disorder of one house might be checked by 
the discipline of the others : and over all the Abbot of Oluny 
exercised an almost despotic authority. Further, the Cluniac 
houses were free from the control of the bishops, and directly 
dependent on the pops ; and while they aimed at a restoration 
of ecclesiastical discipline generally, they were specially con- 
cerned to enforce clerical celibacy. The celibacy of the clergy 
was not merely a religious doctrine ; it was also essential to 
the independence, solidarity, and strength of the Chm'ch. A 
married clergy was almost certain to be local rather than 
catholic in its interests, and subservient to the great nobles of 
the district. Such was the Cluniac movement. It will be 
seen that it gave powerful support to the idea of a Church 
universal, united, disciplined, governed by a single head, and 
independent of the secular powers. 

These ideas found a champion in the great Hildebrand, 
perhaps the greatest ecclesiastic of the Middle Ages. His great 
powers of mind and will enabled him to advance the ttmj . . 
cause of reform by influencing the policy of various 
popes, whom he served as chaplain or secretary, and in a nomi- 
nally subordinate capacity he became the real director of the 
policy of the Church. He did not covet the highest place, but 
his reputation was so great that in 1073 he was raised by 
popular acclamation to the Papal dignity. 

His chief aim was to free the Church from all control by 
secular powers of whatever kind. His principles are clearly 
and aggressively expressed in a document which is The aims of 
known as the Didatus Papae. We find in it such Gregory VI I. 
declarations as the following : " The Koman pontiff is unique 
in the world. He alone can depose or reconcile bishops. . . . 
He can be judged by no one. . . . The Roman Church never 



1 66 Outlines of European History 

has been deceived, and never can be deceived. The Roman 
pontiff has the right to depose emperors. Human pride has 
created the power of kings, God's mercy has created the 
power of bishops. The pope is the master of emperors." 

A powerful and able pope holding such views as these was 
certain to come into collision with the empire. Upon what 
The strength allies could the Pope rely in such a struggle ? 
of the Papacy. His chief force lay doubtless in the reverence that 
was felt for the head of the Church, and the effect produced 
by the Papal weapons of interdict and excommunication, which 
use had not yet blunted. But he had temporal allies as well. 
Tuscany was at this time in the hands of the famous Countess 
Matilda, and she gave to the Papacy undeviating support 
throughout her whole life. In the south of Italy the Papacy 
could usually count on the fidelity of the Normans, and 
to these strange invaders of Italy we must give careful 
attention. 

They were men of the same stock as those Northmen who 
had harried the coasts of the Continent and overwhelmed the 
The Normans Saxon monarchy in England. Their kinsmen had 
in Italy. established a stable power along the lower banks of 

the Seine, and had given to it their own name (Normandy). 
We know how, in 1066, the Duke of Normandy became King 
of England. But before that date a branch of the Normans had 
made themselves masters of Southern Italy and Sicily. They 
had seen the land first early in the century, and gradually 
they made themselves an important power there. Their real 
importance began in 1046, when Robert Guiscard (next to 
William the Conqueror the most important Norman in history) 
came out to Italy. The great powerS; which possessed land in 
Italy, joined hands in an effort to expel these invaders whom 
they had despised too long. The emperors, both of the East 
and West, sent forces, and they were joined by Pope Leo IX. ; 
but when this allied army met the Normans at Civitate in 1053, 
the Normans were easily victorious, and the pope fell into the 
hands of his enemies. 

Bat then a strange thing happened. These Normans were 
Christians, and they felt a profound reverence for the titular 
head of the Church. They treated their captive with every 



Struggle between Empire and Papacy— I 167 

honour ; tliey threw themselves at his feet, and their leader 
became his vassal. The pope's defeat at Civitate was far 
more useful to the Papacy than a victory could xhe Normans 
possibly have been. Henceforward for some and the 
time, the Normans are the most faithful of the P^P^cy. 
allies of the Papacy. 

Their rule already extended over the south of Italy. In 
10G2 they attacked Sicily, and easily conquered it from the 
Mahomedans. When Robert Guiscard died he was master of 
Sicily, Southern Italy, and a portion of the land to the east 
of the Adriatic. 

For this and the following chapters, Henderson'' s Docmnents are of 
great use. Tout, Gregorovius, and He^iderson as before. Johnson's 
Normans in Europe (Epochs of Modern History) ; Marion Craiofoi'd's 
Bulers of the South ; Freeinan's Essays. 



CHAPTER IX 

The First Phase in the Struggle between the 
Empire and the Papacy 

Penitence of Canossa ........ 1077 

Death of Gregory VII 1085 

Concordat of Worms 1122 

The time had now come when the popes would need all their 
allies, and all the terrors of their name and office for their con- 
test with the empire. The long and most fruitful alliance of 
the empire and the Papacy was now about to end and give 
place to constant friction and occasional furious conflict. 

The root cause of this great contest is to be found in a 
rivalry for power. One of the threads that runs through all 
European history — sometimes unperceived but jhe rivalry 
always there— is the relation between religion and of Papacy and 
force, between Church and State, between the empire, 
spiritual and the temporal powers. Hitherto the weakness of 



1 68 Outlines of European History 

the empire and of the Papacy had prevented the struggle from 
breaking out. Each had need of the other, or one was so weak 
that the other could not feel its rivalry. But now the empire 
was a real force, efficiently organized and capable of energetic 
action ; and the Church, as we have seen, was in the hands of 
Hildebrand, whose chief aim in life was to establish the inde- 
pendent authority of the Church. The two organizations, 
therefore, inevitably came into collision. Underlying all 
technical details there was the question, " Who is master : pope 
or emperor ? " The question was most urgent on German 
soil ; for there, as we have seen, the emperor's chief rehance 
in affairs of State was upon the bishops, who were in effect 
appointed by the emperor, and received *' investiture " at his 
hand ; that is, were by him formally appointed to their episcopal 
sees in such a way that it was plain that their first allegiance 
was to the emperor ; and their relation to the pope was only 
general and secondary. 

Henry IV. had succeeded to the imperial throne in 1056, 
at the age of six. There were friction and difficulty before the 
H IV g^eat contest came in 1075, but we may omit the 
and the in- prelude, and notice only the actual struggle. In 
vestiture 1075, Gregory YII. issued a Papal Decree against 

contest. ^ a 1^^ investitures," ie. against the practice of lay- 
men (and the emperor was the greatest of laymen) appointing 
bishops and giving them the ring and the crozier as symbols of 
their office. Any one receiviug any ecclesiastical office in such 
a way was deprived of his office, and further, Gregory YII. 
declared "if an emperor, king, duke, marquis, count, or any 
lay power or person has the presumption to grant investiture, 
let him know that he is excommunicated." The controversy 
was thus clearly stated. All Churchmen were the servants of 
the Church, not of the empire. If the emperor would not 
admit that, he was cut off from the body of the Church. Such 
was the contention of Gregory. 

This contest between Henry lY. and Gregory YII. is the 
central chapter of the Middle Ages. Gregory was in power 
and in character, perhaps, the greatest of the popes, and the 
empire was not unworthily represented by Henry lY. Bulls 
and letters followed one another, and the antagonists lost 



struggle between Empire and Papacy— I 169 

dignity and self-control as the controversy proceeded, and railed 

at one another with extreme violence. It seemed at first as 

though success in the conflict must lie with Henry ^ , ., 
TTT A • i. ii ri • ,. 1 Contest be- 

i V . Against the (xerman armies of the emperor tween Heniy 

what could the pope oppose ? But the conflict IV. and 
was not so unequal as it appeared at first. Henry Gregory VII. 
ly. was troubled through a large part of his reign by a revolt 
of the Saxons, which was 
fomented by the pope, 
and in Italy the Countess 
of Tuscany and the Nor- 
mans gave the pope in- 
valuable support. But 
the pope's yet undimin- 
ished prestige, the terrors 
awakened by excommuni- 
cation and interdict, the 
alarm caused by a contest 
with the Yicar of Christ 
— this seems to be the 
most powerful influence 
in the first phase of the 
great contest. 

The greatest incident 
of the struggle came in 
1077, the year of the 
famous penitence of 
Canossa. Henry lY. 
found in this year his 
power threatened in its 
very foundations. His 
subjects — bishops, dukes, 
and counts — were falling 
away from him and siding with the pope ; the Saxons were in 
successful rebellion. Henry found that a reconciliation with 
the Papacy was the only means by which he could The penitence 
preserve his imperial crown. He crossed the Alps, of Canossa. 
and humbly approached the Papal Court, which was at the 
moment in the castle of Canossa. On three occasions he was 




The Penitence of Canossa. 

(^From a Miniature. From Lavisse and Parmentier's 
" Album Eistorique."^ 

Henry IV. is represented kneeling before the Abbot 
of Cluny and Matilda of Tuscany. Below is written 
in Latin, " The King prays to the Abbot and makes 
supplication to Maiilda." 



I70 Outlines of European History 

refused admission, and it was at last only upon the intercession 
of the Countess Matilda that he received forgiveness at the 
hands of the pope. In a letter to the princes of Germany, 
Gregory emphasized the extreme humiliation to which the 
emperor had descended. " When we had severely taken him 
to task for his excesses, he came, at length, of his own accord, 
showing nothing of hostility or boldness, to the town of 
Canossa, where we were tarrying ; and there, having laid aside 
all the belongings of royalty, wretchedly, with bare feet and 
clad in wool, he continued for three days to stand before the 
gate of the castle. . . . Finally, conquered by the persistency of 
his compunction and by the constant supplication of all those 
who were present, we loosed the chain of anathema, and at 
length received him into the favour of communion, and into 
the lap of the Holy Mother Church." 

The " penitence of Canossa " may be taken as marking the 
very zenith of Papal power and influence. The claims of the 
Church were stated with still greater emphasis by later popes ; 
but never did they find such general acceptance. The Norman 
conquest of England, which had taken place ten years before, 
had been supported by the Papacy and had made the Church in 
England more Roman in its ritual and in its government. The 
French king yielded implicit obedience to the pope. The Papal 
authority, in matters temporal and spiritual, seemed by far the 
greatest force of the age. 

The reconciliation at Canossa was only temporary. Henry 
lY. could not really consent to hold the imperial power on 
Death of sufferance. A year after the "penitence" hos- 
GregoryVII. tilities had recommenced. Each antagonist pro- 
ceeded to extreme measures. Gregory YII. declared Henry 
IV. deposed, and gave his support to an anti-emperor ; and 
the emperor replied by supporting an anti-pope. In 1080 the 
Papal ban was again pronounced against Henry ; but the 
repeated use of the weapon was blunting its edge. In the next 
year Henry invaded Italy, besieged the pope himself in the 
Castle of St. Angelo, and occupied the remainder of the City of 
Rome. In his distress Gregory appealed to the Normans, and 
Robert Guiscard came, occupied Rome, and released the pope. 
But the pope's champion was a worse enemy to the city than 



Struggle between Empire and Papacy— I 171 

the emperor had been, and the inhabitants were barbarously 
plundered and slain by the Normans. Gregory found himself 
in consequence unpopular. He retired to Salerno, and died 
there in 1085. " I have loved the law of God, and hated 
iniquity ; therefore I die in exile," are said to have been among 
his last words. 

Henry Y. succeeded to the empire in 1106, and still, though 
both Germany and Italy stood in need of good government, the 
struggle with the Papacy occupied the emperor's jr „ y a 
chief attention. But the contest was not prosecuted the attempt 
now with quite the old tenacity and absolute claim, at compro- 
The evils that it brought were at last apparent. ™^^^* 
Thoughts of compromise and conciliation came to the front, and 
in 1111 it seemed as though a final arrangement might be 
reached. Henry Y. had invaded Italy and had negotiated with 
Pope Paschal, who was far from the unyielding temper of 
Gregory YII. It was arranged that a compromise on the right 
of investiture should be accepted, and in sign of reconciliation 
the pope was solemnly to crown Henry Y. But the terms 
seemed to the Eomans an abj-ect surrender. The coronation 
was interrupted by a riot in which many Germans were killed. 
Another war came, and the decision was postponed for eleven 
more years. 

These years reproduced the constant features of the contro- 
versy. There was an anti-pope set up. The Papal excommuni- 
cation was renewed. A Saxon rebellion broke out afresh, and 
the victory seemed to lie rather with the pope than the emperor. 
Pope Paschal died, and his successor died. It was left to Pope 
Calixtus II. — the first pope who for a long time had come from 
the secular or non-mouastic ranks — to bring the controversy, at 
any rate to a truce. The Concordat of Worms The Concordat 
(1122) brought to a close the first phase of this great of Worms. 
controversy. The solution was made possible by looking at the 
" investiture question " only, and refusing to consider the wider 
and insoluble question of the rivalry of powers. By the Con- 
cordat it was agreed that the election of bishops should be left 
in the hands of the Church, and that they should receive the 
ring and the crozier — the insignia of their spiritual office — at 
the hands of the pope. But the bishops were in most instances 



172 Outlines of European History 

not only spiritual chiefs, but territorial lords as well, and it was 
arranged by the Concordat that they should do homage for their 
temporal possessions to the empire, and receive from the 
emperor separate investiture. 

The investiture contest, then, had ended in a drawn battle, 
but the authority of the Papacy had much increased during its 
General re- course, and the power of the empire had diminished . 
suits of the The memory of the penitence of Canossa could not 
contest. "be effaced and was never forgotten. Moreover, 

during the struggle the feudal nobility, the constant enemy of 
royal or imperial power, had gained dangerous independence, 
which threatened the very existence of the German monarchy. 
It was only a comparatively narrow issue that had been 
decided. No final settlement of the relations between Church 
and State had been reached. They were still rivals for power. 



CHAPTER X 

The Second Phase in the Struggle between the 
Empire and the Papacy 

Saint Bernard ......... 1091-1153 

Humiliation of Barbarossa . . » . . 1177 

When the struggle reached its next crisis, political and con- 
stitutional questions played a greater part than in the days of 
Gregory YII. and Henry lY., and it is necessary therefore to 
consider the development of Germany and Italy. 

After the settlement of 1122, Germany had a period of 
peace, and peace, as usual, meant progress. The Emperor 
Accession of Lothair succeeded Henry V., and reigned from 1125 
Frederick to 1137. His successor was Conrad III. of Hohen- 
Barbarossa. gtaufen, and all the important emperors after him 
until the empire ceased to be a great force in Europe belonged 
to the Hohenstaufen family. After a reign of fifteen years 
Conrad was succeeded by Frederick Barbarossa— the greatest of 
the Hohenstaufen, and perhaps the greatest of all the medieval 
emperors since Charlemagne (1152). His mind was full of the 



struggle between Empire and Papacy — II 173 



memories of the past glories of the empire, and his chief ambition 
was to re-establish it in its former splendour. Such an ambition 
for a time turned his thoughts away from Germany to Italy, 
and ended in a great disaster. Bub Germany reached almost the 
zenith of her medieval culture under his rule. The imperial 
power was successfully asserted against all feudal rivalry (that 
was the constant task of all medieval monarchs), and when Henry 
the Lion of Saxony, the last of the great stem-dukes, rebelled, 

he was defeated, banished, 
and his territories par- 
titioned. Two other ten- 
dencies also helped to 
exalt the power of the 
Crown against the nobles. 
The first was the develop- 
ment of the great cities 
of Germany, such as 
Cologne, Treves, Worms, 
Niirnberg, Augsburg. 
These cities became the 
centres of all that was 
best in German medieval 
culture ; but they were 
also powerful allies of 
the central imperial 
power against the feudal 
nobility. The second 
an ti- feudal The study of 
influence Roman law. 

was the introduction of 
Roman law. The study 
of Roman law was eagerly pursued during the eleventh and 
twelfth centuries. The recently founded universities devoted 
a large part of their attention to it, and it was eagerly wel- 
comed by all kings and rulers in Europe. For while its 
justice and its logic appealed to the intellect of all men, it 
pleased all rulers by its insistence upon the unlimited rights 
of the ruler. " What the prince determines has the force of 
law," was one of the great mottoes of Roman law, and in 




Frederick Barbarossa's Castle at Kaiser- 
worth on the Rhine. 



(J'rom Lavisse and Parmentier's 
Eistoriquc.") 



'■ Album 



174 



Outlines of European History 




Struggle between Empire and Papacy— II 175 

Germany, France, and England, the rulers were not slow to 
see how such a motto, logically enforced, would strengthen 
their authority in Church and State. 

The political character of Italy was rapidly changing. The 
authority of the Papacy was as high as ever, and was for a time 
increased by the Crusading movement, which was The condition 
now at its zenith, and which will receive separate of Italy, 
treatment shortly. There had been, moreover, a great monastic 
revival, and that, as always, had made for the strength of the 
Papacy. This new movement led to the formation of the 
Cistercian order. Stephen Harding gave it its .^j^^ cister- 
laws, but it owed its rapid spread and its cianmonas- 
great influence chiefly to the great St. Bernard teriesandSt. 
(1091-1153), the most perfect type of medieval Bernard. 
Catholicism. He did not, like Hildebrand, rise to the Papal 
throne, but during a large part of his life he was a force in the 
Church more powerful than the popes themselves. He settled 
by his authority contests which seemed likely to break its unity ; 
he combated heresy ; he preached a crusade ; he powerfully in- 
fluenced the thought and worship of the Church, giving special 
prominence to the wor=ship of the Yirgin Mary. The Church 
and its head, the pope, derived great strength from his counsels 
and the honour in which he was held. 

But by the side of the Papacy, and at first in alliance with 
it, were rising up political forces which were destined to be 
dangerous rivals. 

We have already spoken of the Norman power in the south 
of Italy. It had consolidated and strengthened since last we 
saw it. Roger of Sicily, after 1127, ruled with un- jhe Normans 
questioned right over both Naples and Sicily, and and the Two 
the state is henceforward known as " The Two SiciHes. 
Sicilies." His dominions contained a strange mixture of races, 
creeds, and nationalities : there were Normans, Greeks, Latins, 
Saracens. His rule was tolerant ; and philosophy and literature 
began to flourish, chiefly under Saracen influences. Eoger of 
Sicily died in 1154, and his successors were not, at first, worthy 
of him, but " The Two Sicilies " remained a rich and powerful 
state. 

Meanwhile, in the north of Italy, a new and very different 



176 Outlines of European History 

force was developing itself. The lands of the great Lombard 
plain, as well as Tuscany, were part of the possessions of 




The Ground Plan of the Abbey de Cifceans, 
{From Lavisse and Parmentier's " Album Eistonque.") 
This abbey clmrch stands at the back of the central block of buildings and forms the north 
Bide of the cloister. On the southern side are the refectory and kitchen, etc. lo the 
east are the dormitories of the monks ; to the west those of the lay brothers. 

Frederick Barbarossa, and here, as in Germany, the cities 
were rising to a vigorous and independent life. Bologna, 



struggle between Empire and Papacy— II 177 

Florence, Milan, wifch the maritime states of Yenice, Pisa, and 
Genoa, were the chief. At first the government of most of 
these cities had centred round the bishop, and with The cities of 
the help of their bishops they had shaken off the Lombardy. 
power of the neighbouring nobles. But now the city govern- 
ments were pressing forward to independence alike from feudal 
and episcopal control. The cities of northern Italy reproduced 
during the next three centuries many of the features of ancient 
Greece. The cities claimed and often possessed the indepen- 
dence of the old Greek cities ; they had the same eager 
patriotism,*" the same turbulence, the same passionate interest 
in intellectual and artistic matters. Under very different 
names their government reproduced some of the features of 
the cities of Greece. The whole body of citizens was known 
as the communifas, and gathered together for political purposes 
into a parlamentum ; the council or senate was called the 
credentia, and at the head of the state were magistrates bearing 
the title of consuls, though there is little in common between 
them and the magistrates of the Roman Republic whose name 
they bear. Milan took the first place among them by reason 
of her wealth, her ambitions and the development of her self- 
government, but her claims were hotly contested. For the 
mutual jealousies of the cities were frequent and bitter, but 
when they were threatened by an external enemy they united 
into efficient and well-knit leagues. In Germany, as in Italy, 
the splendour and independence of the cities was a marked 
feature .of the age ; but in Germany they were allied with and 
in Italy they opposed the imperial power. 

This spirit of municipal independence had shown itself even 
in Rome. There, under Arnold of Brescia, one of the great 
scholars of the day, there rose a strong and in- Arnold of 
teresting movement, which aimed partly at the re- Brescia in 
form of Church government and morals, and partly ^ome. 
at the creation of a free popular government for the City of 
Rome. The emperor joined with the pope in opposing a danger 
that threatened them both, and Arnold was defeated and burnt. 
The whole movement shows the strong fermentation of public 
opinion in Italy. 

Such was the Italy over the northern part of which the 

N 



1 78 Outlines of European History 

imperial title gave Frederick Barbarossa claims which he 
would have been wiser to neglect. His first contest w?-S with 
Frederick ^^® cities of the north of Italy. Milan was the 
Barbarossa centre of the movement, and if the claims of Milan 
in Italy. ^qyq allowed, the imperial power in the Lombard 

plain would soon be reduced to a shadow. There were expedi- 
tions into Italy, fighting and sieges of various fortune, and in 
the end, as it seemed, a complete victory for the empire. After 
the great siege of 1162, it was determined that Milan should 
be destroyed utterly, and that the population should be divided 
among the smaller and less dangerous towns. The right of the 
emperor to the government of the cities was at the same time 
asserted, and it seemed impossible to resist it. 

But the cities found a powerful ally in the Papacy. As early 
as 1157 there had been serious friction on a question of principle 
The Lombard hetween Frederick Barbarossa and the pope, Adrian 
League and lY. For in a public document the pope had spoken 
the Papacy, ^f ^\^q imperial crown as being conferred by the 
popes, and of the empire as being a benefice (or feudal de- 
pendency) of the Papacy. Against so humiliating a reading of 
the relations of empire and Papacy the emperor had energetically 
protested, and the pope had explained away his meaning to 
some extent. But the pope saw with dislike the appearance of 
the empire as a real force in the north of Italy, and in 1159 
there was a contest between the two rivals of the most direct 
description. In that year Alexander III. was elected pope ; but 
the cardinals who were in league with the emperor refused to 
accept the election, and chose instead a certain Victor. This 
anti-pope received the support of the Emperor Frederick, and 
thus Alexander III. was at once plunged into a struggle in 
which his position as pope was involved. A common danger 
drew the pope and the Lombard cities together, and soon they 
formed a league, which later developed into the famous Lombard 
League. The Emperor Frederick, in fierce wrath, marched into 
Italy, and found little resistance until he laid siege to Rome. 
The city fell into his hands. Alexander III. fled for refuge to 
the Normans. The triumph of the emperor seemed complete. 
But then pestilence fell upon his army and almost destroyed it. 
He had to retire beyond the Alps with the scanty remnants of 



struggle between Empire and Papacy— II 179 

his great force, and men saw in his disaster the judgment of 
God upon the enemy of the Vicar of Christ. 

The struggle was soon renewed and the emperor gained 
some successes ; but then at Legnano (seventeen miles from 
Milan) his army was thoroughly beaten, and in July, 1177, 
Frederick Barbarossa met Pope Alexander III. in the portico 
of St. Mark's at Venice. " He was touched by the Spirit of 




Part of the Front of St. Mark's, Venice. 

{From Simpson's " History of Architectural Development.") 

Three red slabs in the pavement of the portico commemorate the reconciliation between 
the emperor and the pope. 

God, and, abandoning his imperial dignity, threw himself 
humbly at the feet of the pope." It was almost ^j^^ humiiia- 
exactly a hundred years since the more famous tionof 
penitence of Canossa, and the victory of the Frederick 
Papacy was, really, even more complete than on at%'enke!^ 
that famous day. But it was not only the 
pope that had won. The cities of Italy had also gained a 



i8o Outlines of European History 

complete victory — a victory fraught with great consequences 
for the politics and culture of Europe. 

The second phase of the great struggle was over, though 
there was renewed friction and trouble towards the end of the 
jyj ,. r reign of Frederick.. But the third phase was pre- 
Constanceof pared for by an epoch-making marriage which 
Sicily and Frederick arranged during the last years of his 
Henry VI. ^,^.^^^ rj^j^^ territory of the Two Sicilies, so often 
the ally of the Papacy against the empire, had come by 
descent into the hands of a princess, Constance. How often in 
history has the possession of the crown by a marriageable 
princess proved fateful for the people over whom she holds 
sway ! Henry (afterwards the Emperor Henry YI.) the son 
of Frederick Barbarossa married Constance. It was clear 
that by this stroke of diplomacy the Norman power was 
destined to become the ally of the empire. The future was 
to show that from this union would spring the worst enemy of 
the Papacy. 



CHAPTEPv XI 

The Third Phase in the Struggle between the 
Empire and the Papacy 

Innocent III., Pope 1198 

Battle of Bouvines . 1214 

Death of Frederick II 1250 

Battle of Tagliacozzo 1268 

We must still neglect the great movements that were pro- 
ceeding elsewhere — in England, in France, in Spain, in the 
East ; and follow the story of the empire and the Papacy 
down to the close of their medieval rivalry. 

At the end of the twelfth century both were mighty 
powers ; each strong in the number of its supporters, in its 
organization, and in the support which theory gave to its claim. 
In the two previous contests victory had rested on the whole 
with the Papacy, and yet the empire was not crushed. Its 



struggle between Empire and Papacy — III i8i 

force was still great, and its ambitions and its claims were in 
no way abated. 

Henry YI., the son of Frederick Barbarossa, was, as we 
have seen, married to Constance, the heiress of the kingdom 
of the Two Sicilies. He was ambitious to make The Emperor 
the "Holy Roman Empire" into a reality — to Henry VI. 
make the connection between Italy and Germany a real and a 
close one — and to rule all Europe from Italy. His reign did not 
see so acute or dramatic a crisis in the struggle with the 
Papacy as we have already recorded, and shall shortly have 
to record. But the struggle existed and the pope even raised 
up a rival claimant to his Sicilian dominions. Bub Henry 
YI. was victorious over all his enemies. He cherished one 
hope, in which he failed, and which, if accomplished, might 
have profoundly altered the destinies of Europe. He wished 
to make the empire hereditary, like most of the monarchies of 
Europe, instead of elective ; and his scheme, which would 
have gone far to strengthen Germany, received considerable 
support from the leaders of Germany. But in the end ifc 
failed, the empire remained elective, though the precise 
methods of the election were not definitely laid down until a 
latei? date. An elective monarchy, though it has gained the 
support of some theorists, has in practice worked very badly. 
Wherever it has been adopted it has proved a cause of 
weakness and disintegration in the State. 

Upon the death of Henry YI. in 1197, his son Frederick 
was a mere child. Upon this child, afterwards the Emperor 
Frederick II., we must fix our attention. But, pope inno- 
first, we must turn to the development of the cent ill. 
Papacy. In 1198 Innocent III. became pope. If he may 
not be .called the greatest of the popes— a title which 
properly belongs to Gregory the Great, or Gregory YII. — he 
at least brings forward the claims of the Papacy in their 
most absolute form. If earlier popes had limited their aims 
to securing the independence of the Church, Innocent III. 
claimed for it supremacy over all crowned heads. The 
following are words that are attributed to Innocent III.: 
" Ye see what manner of servant this is whom the Lord hath 
set over his people ; no other than the vicegerent of Christ j 



i82 Outlines of European History 

the successor of Peter. He stands in the midst between God 
and man ; below God, above man ; less than God, more than 
man. lie judges all and is judged by none, for it is written, 
*I will judge.'" And again: "The Lord left to Peter not 
oi)ly the government of the Universal Church, but of the 
whole world." Not only did the pope declare these high 
ideals, but during the Pontificate of Innocent III. they came 
near to realization. It is well known how he interfered in 
England in the contest between King John and his subjects ; 
he forced PhiHp Augustus, the powerful King of France, to take 
back the wife that he had repudiated. The kingdom of the 
Two Sicilies, Sweden, Denmark, Aragon, and Portugal, all 
recognized the suzerainty of the Papacy. He interfered also 
in the empire with decisive effect. For upon the death of 
Henry YI. there was a dispute as to the imperial succession. 
Innocent III. and it was the influence of Innocent III. which 
and otto IV. secured the prize for Otto IV. " My kingship 
would have dissolved in dust and ashes had not your hand 
weighed the scale in my favour," wrote the grateful conqueror. 
But soon the relations of pope and emperor grew strained, as 
they nearly always did : the question was not one of personality, 
but of rival powers with undefined frontiers. Otto lY. 
attempted to invade the " Two Sicilies." Neither Innocent 
III. nor any other pope desired to see the empire strong in 
Italy, and Otto's claim to the Sicilies was opposed. The 
Papal ban was pronounced against him ; the influence of 
Innocent III. raised up enemies against him on every side ; 
in 1211 the kingdom of Germany and the imperial title were 
transferred to Frederick the son of Henry YI. and Constance, 
whom we shall henceforth call the Emperor Frederick II. 
The contest that ensued was a bitter one and influenced all 
Europe, but Otto was decisively defeated at the battle of 
Bouvines in 1214, and when Innocent III. died the victory of 
Frederick II. was assured. 

But Innocent III. had unwittingly raised to the imperial 
throne one of the most dangerous enemies of the Papacy, The 
Emperor Frederick II. is one of the most remarkable figures 
of the Middle Ages, and was in many respects far in advance 
of his times. In mind and in aims he seems to belong 



Struggle between Empire and Papacy— III 183 

to tlie fifteenth rather than the thirteenth cenfcary. He took 
a keen interest in the knowledge of the day, and founded the 
University of Naples and the school of medicine p , . , ,. 
at Salerno. Both establishments were soon dis- and his break 
tinguished by eminent teachers. A system of withmedi- 
practical toleration allowed different nationalities ^^^^ ^^^as. 
and creeds to contribute to the progress of knowledge in 
his dominions. The emperor was believed, too, to hold 
strange and heretical views on religion, and to believe 
that the emperor might hold a supreme religious position 
as well as the pope. He was, moreover, in advance of his 
century, not only in thought but in action. He governed his 
kingdom of the Two Sicilies in a spirit wholly opposed to 
medieval and feudal ideas. A centralized and all-powerful 
monarchy was his ideal. He broke the power of the nobles 
and destroyed the privileges of the clergy. Henry YIII. of 
England and Louis XL of France would find in his policy a 
good deal which resembled their own. 

Yet we must add that these statements are true only of his 
territories in the south of Italy. In Grermany his government 
reveals an entirely different character. He had xhe rule of 
no time to attend in person to the government Frederick II. 
of his German Kingdom, and he allowed the "^ Germany, 
dominant powers there — the nobles and the clergy — to rule 
according to their own cherished ideals. If progress towards 
a modern type was the result of his rule in his southern 
kingdom, in Germany, on the contrary, we see retrogression 
towards the worst abuses of feudalism. Municipal liberties 
were crushed in the interests of the nobles. Heresy was 
cruelly punished. At no time was the connection of Germany 
with Italy more fatal to the northern people. 

But it is to his relations with the Papacy that we must 
specially look. He was the special protege of the Papacy, but 
it was impossible to harmonize papal and imperial Frederick II. 
claims, and Frederick 11. was soon engaged in the and the 
old contest. The first trouble arose chiefly out of ^^P^^y* 
Frederick's failure to carry out his promise to conduct a 
crusade. He was excommunicated for this, and when at last 
he sailed and achieved a great success in the East, his methods 



1 84 Outlines of European History 

again brought him under the displeasure of the Papacy. Upon 
his return, he found papal troops in possession of his territories, 
but expelled them without much difficulty (1230). 

A fiercer contest began a few years later. The papal 
alliance with the League of Cities in the north of Italy still 
Gueifs and continued ; and Frederick, in attempting to curb or 
Ghibellines. crush the municipal liberties of North Italy, came 
into collision with the Papacy. The feudal nobility ranged 
themselves on the side of Frederick ; the Papacy was every- 
where supported by the new order of the Franciscans. 
Throughout Italy and in almost every city there were imperial 
parties (the Ghibellines), and papal parties (the Gueifs), and 
their contests lasted on long after the original cause had 
disappeared. It is a difficult contest to follow. When 
Frederick II. died, no decisive victory had been won by either 
side. Frederick gained battles, and the pope used the weapon 
of excommunication. The pope set up a rival emperor, and 
Frederick seized the bishops as they were going to a council 
which had been summoned at Eome. We shall not try to follow 
the details, but we will notice the furious and implacable spirit 
in which the controversy was conducted. A papal bull denounced 
the emperor as " a beast — whose name is all over written 
blasphemy. . . ." ; as one " who had laid his secret ambush 
against the Church, who had built schools for the perdition of 
souls, and had lifted himself up against Christ, the Redeemer 
of man." Frederick, on his side, declared that the pope was 
" the great anti-Christ who deceived the whole world . . . the 
prince of the princes of darkness . . . the angel who issued 
from the abyss having the vials full of wormwood to waste 
earth and heaven." And he appealed to all crowned heads to 
join him in a struggle which concerned them all : "If I fall, 
who will be able to stand up against the pope ? " 

The struggle was undecided at Frederick's death (1250), 
but then the decision came swiftly. Three descendants of 
Th nd Frederick took up in turn the imperial title and 

of the the struggle with the Papacy which it involved, 

Hohenstaufen and all were unsuccessful. Conrad lY., the son 
emperors. ^f Frederick, was driven from Germany. He took 
Naples, but died soon afterwards, Manfred, the brother of 



Struggle between Empire and Papacy— III 185 

Conrad, succeeded to the task ; and against him the pope, 
Urban TV., appealed to France. For, be it noted, France, 
which in forty years' time was to inflict upon the papal power 
a blow far more serious than any empsror had done, was just 
now the trusted and loyal ally of the Papacy. The relations of 
the French king, Louis IX., with Rome recalled the friendship 
that had existed between the Franks and the Papacy in the 
days of Charles Martel and King Pippin and Charles the Great. 
Now Charles of Anjou, brother of the French king, Louis IX., 
entered Italy and defeated Manfred near Benevento (1267). 
Conraddino, grandson of Frederick II., was the last of the 
Hohenstaufen. The frantic misrule of Charles of Anjou gave 
him his chance. He invaded the peninsula as the " Liberator 
of Italy." But he was defeated at Tagliacozzo (1268), and was 
subsequently publicly beheaded in Naples. With this piteous 
tragedy the line of the Hohenstaufen was extinct, and the 
victory of the Papacy ended its conflict with the empire. 

The victory of the Papacy seemed complete. The empire 
was overthrown and never revived except in name. But the 
Papacy had also, though few guessed it as yet, The victory of 
been terribly weakened during the contest. Its the Papacy, 
vindictive policy had shaken its moral authority, ^"^ ^^^ ^°^' 
and the powers of Europe were alarmed at the ^"^^^^^^^• 
claims of temporal superiority which the Papacy had put for- 
ward, and at the success which it had achieved. The Papacy 
seemed always doomed to find its worst enemies in its late 
allies. We shall see how France achieved the humiliation of 
the Papacy for which Frederick 11. had struggled in vain. 

Valuable illustrations for this period will be found in Miss Selfe's 
Abridgment of Villani's Chronicle. There is an essay on Frederick II. 
in Freeman's Hisioncal Essays. 



i86 Outlines of European History 

CHAPTER XII 
The Rise of the French Monarchy 

Hugh Capet elected 987 

First Crusade . 1095 

Philip Augustus 1 180-1223 

Saint Louis (Louis IX.). . . .. • • 1226-1270 

While the struggle between empire and Papacy had been pio- 
ceeding, a movement had been going on west of the Rhine and 
north of the Alps which was destined to eclipse in power both 
empire and Papacy. The French monarchy and the French 
nationality had come into being. We must retrace our steps 
from the thirteenth into the ninth century. 

When the dominions of Charlemagne were partitioned at 
the treaty of Verdun, the westernmost division was known as 
The French the Kingdom of France, but from the first it 
Monarchy and possessed little Unity, and it suffered more than 
the Normans. ^^^ qi\^qj> part of Charles's dominions from the 
invasions of the Northmen. This danger culminated when, in 
885, the Northmen laid siege to Paris. The kings of France 
would not have been able to save the city ; but a great feudal 
nobleman succeeded where the monarchy had failed, and Paris 
owed her survival to Odo, Count of Paris. From this time 
onwards the Northmen settled definitely upon the lands on 
either side of the lower course of the Seine, to which later they 
gave their name (Normandy). At last, in 911, the French 
kings made a treaty with the Normans and ceded the land to 
them to be held under the suzerainty of the King of France. 

Of the French kings, meanwhile, there is little need be said. 
They were like the Frankish rois faineants over again ; and by 
Rise of the ^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ Dukes of France were rising up to 
Capetian eclipse them. At last, in 987, when the throne 
dynasty. ^^s Vacant, it was decided to elect Hugh Capet^ 

Duke of France, to the crown, and from him the Capetian 
dynasty of France rises ; it was not until 1830 that its last 
representative disappeared from France. The date, 987, though 
a most notable one, did not mark to contemporaries any great 



The Rise of the French Monarchy 187 




GE0R5E PHILIP* SON I'J 



1 88 Outlines of European History 

revolution. The new kings were far from being masters of 
all France. But Hugh Oapet and his descendants for many 
generations were in close alliance with the Church, and, if their 
royal power was slight and almost ceremonial, as dukes they 
were possessed of a rich, imporbanb, and compacb domain. 

It is important to grasp the situation in France at the close 
of the tenth century. Look at the accompanying map (p. 187) ; it 
France in the IS only in the darkly shaded part that the French 
tenth century, king ruled with direct authority. Elsewhere, 
though he was king, there was always some feudal nobleman 
who stood between him and the people : and in all these 
districts the power of the feudal nobleman — duke, count, or 
baron — was everything, and the power of the king little more 
than nominal. The future shows us the gradual destruction of 
feudal authority by the royal power. The same map shows 
how the royal territory developed, until in the sixteenth century 
only certain districts to the south of the Loire retained their 
feudal independence, and these were incorporated before the 
end of the century. There were nobles — dukes, and counts and 
barons — still ; but all these were subordinate to the crown. The 
nobles had become the king's subjects ; the land had become 
the king's land. Note, too, that feudalism in France developed 
as it never was allowed to do in England. Especially private 
war among the feudal chiefs — a thing which England hardly 
ever knew — was constant and recognized in France. 

We must pass lightly through the annals of France, content 
merely to notice the salient point in the development of the 
The develop- nionarchy. The first decided upward move came 
ment of the in the reign of Philip I. (1060-1108), and of the 
French ^wo great events which helped him, neither 

monarc y. happened on the soil of France, For fiist, in 
1066, William of Normandy became William I., King of 
England ; and thus the strongest and most dangerous of the 
French king's vassals was given a task which would divert his 
ambition from France. In 1095, too, came the first preaching 
of the crusades. The crusading movement was at first largely 
French; and it took away from France a great number of 
nobles in whom the crown saw rivals rather than subjects. 
The two successors of Philip I. carried on the general policy of 



The Rise of the French Monarchy 189 

tlie French Crown. The alliance with the Church continued,, 
and the kings strengthened their government in their own 
domains. But a new force appeared in their reigns. The great 
towns of France began to acquire freedom of government at the 
expense of the neighbouring noblemen, and this movement was 
supported by the patronage of the Crown. The clergy, the towns- 
folk, and the lower orders came to be regarded as the king's 
allies against the feudal nobility. In the reign of Louis YIL, 
however, an event occurred which seemed likely to counter- 
balance all the advantages which the Crown had won. Louis YIL 
was married to Eleanor of Aquitaine, who brought as her dowry 
the great territories of the Duchy of Aquitaine. But the king 
divorced her, and she subsequently married Flenry, Duke of 
Anjou and King of England. Henry was now a far greater 
power in France than King Louis ; the actual domains of the 
French king were petty in comparison with those over which 
Henry of England ruled by various titles. The follies of the 
Kings of England and the skill of Philip Augustus, King of 
France, saved the French monarchy from what seemed a great 
danger. 

The rivalry between Philip Augustus of France and Richard 
Coeur de Lion and John, Kings of England, forms a well-known 
chapter of English history, and we need not go phiup 
over it here. We need only recall how the fierce Aug-ustus 
qr.arrels of the children of Henry II. compromised defeats the 
their father's work ; how Philip Augustus joined "^ 
with the pope in resisting the Emperor Otto and King John ; 
and how the cause of the English king and the Holy Roman 
Emperor was ruined in the battle of Bouvines. The Norman in- 
heritance of the English kings was taken from them ; the autho- 
rity of the French Crown had never made so great an advance. 

But it was not by arms alone that Philip Augustus 
strengthened the throne. He began the development of the 
machinery of government in France, which subsequently 
reached an elaboration unknown in Europe since the fall of 
the Roman Empire. The University of Paris grew rapidly, 
and the study of Roman law — always favourable to 
monarchical claims — received special attention. The alliance 
between the monarchy and the cities continued. 



I go 



Outlines of European History 




-1-3 

<D 
O 

XI 
-1-= 






^ tea 
c/5 a> 



1 ^1 

« == a 

a* a bo 

^ a=2 



The Rise of the French Monarchy 191 

His successor, Louis YIII., had only a short reign, and 
then came the noblest and the greatest of all French kings — 
Louis IX., or, as he is now usually called. Saint The reign of 
Louis. He deserves his saintly title, for his life S. Louis, 
was devoted to religion, and in him the religion of the Middle 
Ages is shown with little bigotry, fanaticism, or cruelty : piety, 
charity, and a wonderful sweetness of nature shine through 
all that he does or says. But his reputation for piety has 
sometimes done harm to his reputation for statesmanship. 
Had he not been a saint he would still have been a great 
French king, and, self -forgetful though he was, he developed 
with skill and energy the strength of the French crown. 

He offered a successful resistance to a revolt of the feudal 
nobles of France. Nearly all the barons joined together 
to overthrow him, but they were decisively de- The defeat of 
feated, and never again could any of them treat feudalism, 
with the king as an equal power : the days of the old feudalism 
were rapidly drawing to an end. He took, however, no unfair 
advantage, and even restored to Henry IIL of England (who, 
as Duke of Aquitaine, was the French king's vassal) lands 
which he believed to have been unjustly acquired. After the 
death of the Emperor Frederick IL in 1250, France was 
decidedly the first power in Europe. We have seen how the 
Count of Anjou, brother of Louis IX., became King of Sicily. 
The king himself was called in as umpire in the struggle 
between Henry III. of England and his barons. 

Methods of government and the administration of law 
received great improvement at his hands. The king's great 
council was organized as an agency of govern- The new 
ment, not merely of advice. A separate court government, 
was appointed to control the finances of the state. Now, too, 
there comes into clear sight the Parlement of Paris, which 
did so much during the coming centuries to advance the royal 
power in France. The Parlement of Paris (very The Parie- 
unlike the English Parliament) was a body of ment of Paris, 
lawyers and judges whose chief and almost only business was 
to act as a court or courts of justice. Note carefully in what 
.way they advanced the royal power. The spirit of Roman 
law was beginning to prevail in France, and the Parlement 



192 



Outlines of European History 



constantly withdrew cases, which had hitherto been tried by 
the feudal courts of the great nobles, on the ground that they 
were royal cases (cas royaux). Little by little, then, the nobles 
found one of their most important powers undermined. The 




The Parlement at Paris — showing the Holding of a Bed of Justice. 
{From Lavisse and Parmentier's " Album Eistorique.") 
King Charles VII. is liere presiding at a trial; but the "Bed of Justice" was mora 
commonly used to force the Parlement to register an edict of the king's. The pro- 
cedure received its name from the old-fashioned throne and dais where the liing eat. 

king became the chief fountain of law for all the land. But it 
was not only the administration of law, but also the law itself, 
that was reformed. Trial by battle and private war was de- 
clared abolished, and the nobles were forced to deal fairly with 



The Rise of the French Monarchy 193 

their serfs. If ever king deserved to be called Father of his 
Country and Friend of the People, it was St. Louis. 

Let us note, too, that a considerable addition was made to 
the royal territory in the reign, but not through the agency 
of St. Louis. There had broken out, in 1209, a j^g ^i^j, 
furious civil war in the south of France, in the gensian 
territories of the Count of Toulouse. It was heresy, 
chiefly caused by the religious movement in that region, which 
is roughly known as the Albigensian heresy, and which had 
called down upon the unfortunate people the wrath of Pope 
Innocent III. We must not follow the frightful struggle 
through its various phases. The monarchy of France, though 
it had little to do with the affair, was the great gainer. In 
1229, by the treaty of Meaux, a large stretch of territory west 
of the Rhone was ceded to France, and the whole county of 
Toulouse was to come to the King of France at the death of 
the present occupant. Thus the domains of the French king 
touched the Mediterranean, a very important advance. 

Lastly, it must be mentioned that the saintly king was 
induced by his religion to embark on the crusading movement. 
This was the only occasion when he was led by The crusades 
his religion into a step prejudicial to the welfare of S. Louis. 
of his country. Both his crusades were unsuccessful. He 
died in 1270, while absent on the second one. 

His successor, Philip III., demands little - notice from us. 
The royal domains were increased by the acquisition of 
Champagne and Touloase. At his death, in 1285, the French 
government was the strongest and most prosperous on the 
Continent, and nothing had so much contributed to its 
prosperity as its alliance with the Church. The next chapter 
in its history shows it as the fierce and successful enemy of 
the temporal power of the Church. But other subjects must 
be touched on before we turn to that subject. 

Kitchin's History of France ; The Student's History of France ; W. If. 
Hutton's Philip Augustus (Foreign Statesmen) ; Joinville's Life of Saint 
Louis (the finest of medieval chronicles). For the Albigensian heresy, 
the Ecclesiastical Histories of Milman and Robertson. 



194 Outlines of European History 

CHAPTER XIII 
The Crusades 

First Crusade . « 1095 

Second Crusade 1146 

Third Crusade 1189 

Constantinople taken by the Crusaders . . 1204 

Crusade of Saint Louis 1270 

For nearly two centuries (from 1095 to 1270), from the 
Christian states of "Western Europe there went out a series of 
expeditions against the Mahomedan states of the East, which 
are known as the Crusades, from the cross which all those who 
engaged in them wore as a symbol of their task. The most 
heroic and adventurous chapters in the life of the Middle 
Ages are derived from these crusades, and they had a con- 
siderable effect upon the life of Western Europe. 

The causes of the Crusades are to be found partly in the 
condition of the West and partly in that of the East. If we 
look at Western Europe, we must recall, in the The causes of 
first place, the strength of the Papacy in the days the Crusades, 
of Hildebrand (Gregory YII.). There was in Western Europe 
then what she so lacks now — a voice to which all men listened, 
and which most men thought it their duty to obey. It was 
the Age of Faith : the creed of Catholic Christendom was 
accepted by the whole of Western Europe, tales of the super- 
natural found a ready credence, and impulses were then all- 
powerful which have little power now. Moreover, the 
practice of pilgrimage had assumed great proportions during 
the Middle Ages ; it had become an important part of the 
ceremonies of the Catholic Church that the shrines of the 
saints and sacred places should be visited by worshippers for 
the saving of their souls and the remission of sins. And of 
all sacred places in Europe, none was so sacred as the Holy 
Sepulchre at Jerusalem, to which pilgrims were usually 
admitted by the Mahomedans without much difficulty. But 
not only was it the Age of Faith, it was also the Age of War. 



The Crusades 



195 




196 



Outlines of European History 



The feudal system was founded on the military instinct, and 
fostered it. All gentlemen were trained in the practice of 
war, and most of them lovod it. As there grew up strong 
governments in England, France, and Germany, the oppor- 
tunities for gratifying the fighting instinct diminished in 

frequency. A new 
chance for military ad- 
venture was eagerly 
welcomed by many. 

If we turn from the 
west of Europe to the 
east, we find reason 
enough for interfer- 
ence. A new and fiercer 
race of Mahomedans 
was spreading over Asia 
Minor and Syria. Be- 
hind the mild and civil- 
ized Arabs there had 
risen up the fierce and 
terrible race of the Sel- 
jukian Turks. The Arabs 
were overwhelmed. 
Jerusalem was taken, 
and soon all Asia Minor 
was overrun by them. 
Whatever was Christian 
in the East saw the new 




The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, 
Jerusalem. 



state of things with alarm. The pilgrims were no longer 
admitted to Jerusalem, or made their way there through the 
Condition of greatest dangers. The great fair that had been 
the East. held at Jerusalem came to an end. More important 
than all, the Christian Empire at Constantinople (for the 
Roman Empire still existed there, but within shrunk frontiers 
and with weakened resources) saw in these Turks a power 
which it was too weak to resist. In its alarm it looked round 
for allies, and appealed to the Papacy. The Church at Con- 
stantinople was, indeed, separated in doctrine and organization 
from the Church at Rome, but both were threatened by the 



The Crusades 



197 



crusading- 
movement. 



new power, and the popes answered the summons of the 
emperors of the East. 

Pope Gregory YII. (Hildebrand) had summoned the 
princes of Europe to go to the assistance of the Eastern 
emperor. At first no result followed, but the _. . . 
pope's message was reinforced by the preaching of ning of the 
Peter the Hermit, who roused Europe to a frenzy 
by his account of the sufferings of the pilgrims. 
Pope Urban II. took up the work, and in 1095 a great council 
was held at Clermont. Amidst 
the most intense enthusiasm the 
crusade was determined on. All 
present fastened the badge of the 
cross upon their dress. " It is the 
will of God ! " they cried, and they 
looked for supernatural help and 
immediate victory in the task that 
they undertook at God's bidding. 

The First Crusade was, in every 
way, the greatest and most suc- 
cessful. No king took part in it, 
but Provenyals and Italians, 
French, Germans, and Normans 
went out in a vast, undisciplined 
army, and their great nobles 
led them. The departure of 
these nobles has been noted 
already as tending to throw more 
power into the hands of the 
kings of those lands from which 
they went. They suffered terribly from indiscipline, from 
disease, and from the enemy. Their numbers dwindled from, 
perhaps, half a million to twenty-five thousand. The First 
But at last (July 1099) Jerusalem fell into their Crusade, 
hands, and the coast of Syria was partitioned among the 
nobles of the expedition. Jerusalem became a kingdom, and 
was ruled by Godfrey of Bouillon ; Antioch, Odessa, and 
Tripolis were ruled by others of the leading Crusaders. 
But the strangest result of this First Crusade was the creation 




A Crusader. 

{From Lavisse and Parmentier's 
"Album Historique.") 



198 Outlines of European History 

of the military Orders — the Knights of St. John and the 
Knights of the Temple. The Crusaders were not far-seeing 
The military statesmen, but it was clear that these Christian 
Orders. states would need permanent military support if 

tbej were to continue their existence in presence of Turkish 
hostility. The lands had been won by the union of military 
skill with rehgious enthusiasm, and it was thought they might 
be kept by the same means. Thus these Orders of men, 
half-priests and half-soldiers, were founded, the Knights of 
St. John in 1100, the Templars in 1123. These Orders have 
a troubled and a tragic history, but they maintained their 
military energy well, and it was not their fault that the Christian 
states of the East soon fell back into Mahomedan hands. 

The progress of the Mahomedan arms soon aroused Europe 
again. The Second Crusade was preached by St. Bernard in 
The Second 1146, and conducted by Louis YII.,King of France, 
and Third It ended in utter failure. But in spite of its failure, 
Crusades. a Third Crusade was produced by the menacing 
condition of affairs in the East. The greatest of Mahomedan 
chieftains, Saladin, had arisen — more than the equal of his 
Christian rivals in generosity, humanity, and military skill. 
In 1187 the kingdom of Jerusalem fell into his hands. If 
something were not done soon, nothing would be left of the con- 
quests of the early Crusaders. The result was the Third Crusade, 
led by Philip Augustus of France and Richard Coeur de Lion 
of England. The Emperor Frederick Barbarossa set out on 
the Crusade, but perished in Asia Minor. The famous exploits 
of Richard cannot disguise from us the fact that this crusade 
also was a failure. Jerusalem was not taken. The power of 
Saladin was not shaken. The crusade ended in a violent 
quarrel between the two kings. 

With the failure of Richard and Philip Augustus the great 
days of the Crusades may be said to be over. The confident 
faith of the early crusades was for ever past. 
Crusad°e"and ^et the Fourth Crusade (1200-1204) produced 
the capture great, and in a sense permanent results, though 
of Constant!- ^hey tended rather to the weakening than the 
"°^^' strengthening of the Christian power in the 

East. It was Innocent III. who chiefly urged the crusade, and 



The Crusades 199 

his call was responded to by the great nobles of France. They 
made their way by land to Venice, and there sought ships to 
sail to the Holy Land. But their funds were exhausted, and 
without funds they could go no further. They were in 
consequence bound to bargain with the commercial republic of 
Venice. The result was that their enterprise was turned aside 
from the Holy Land, and directed first against Zara, a city on 
the opposite shores of the Adriatic, and later against Constan- 
tinople. It was a strange result of the crusading movement ! 
The Eastern Empire had called upon the Crusaders for 
help, and now it was to be destroyed by the ally whom 
it had invoked. Excuses were not entirely wanting, but 
the commercial ambition of Venice was the real cause of the 
attack. Constantinople fell into their hands in 1204 ; the 
reigning dynasty was deposed ; the Greek form of Christianity 
was declared abolished ; Catholicism and a Latin empire were 
instituted. The first emperor was Baldwin, Count of Flanders. 
It was a great blow to Christianity in the East ; for, though 
the Greek Empire was weak, it was stronger than the new 
Latin one, in which every weakness of feudalism was inten- 
sified. So the Latin kingdom had an unstable existence for 
only a little over half a century. Meanwhile, the national and 
religious feeling of the Greeks was exasperated against it, and 
in 1261 the end came. Michael Palgeologus captured the city, 
and a Greek dynasty and the old faith were re-established, 
to endure for close on two centuries. 

The next crusade was one which we have already glanced at. 
The Emperor Frederick II. — he whom they called "the world's 
wonder," and suspected of various heresies — was The last 
urged and even ordered by Pope Gregory IX. to Crusades, 
go crusading. He refused at first ; was excommunicated, and 
went while he was under excommunication. His method of 
crusading was novel and effective. He showed no fanatical 
hatred for the Mahomedans, and felt none. He negotiated, and 
procured the surrender of Jerusalem. The Holy City was 
opened to pilgrims, and Frederick crowned himself King of 
Jerusalem (1229). 

But the new kingdom of Jerusalem did not last even 
so long as the first. Another wave of Turks spread over 



200 Outlines of European History 

the land, and Jerusalem fell into their hands. Here was 
another call to Christendom, if Christendom had ears to hear. 
S. Louis answered the appeal, and in 1248 he led an ex- 
pedition, not directly against the Holy Land, but into Egypt, 
and there, after gaining great success, was overwhelmed and 
taken prisoner in the battle of Mansourah (1249). He was 
ransomed, and felt that he had not yet fulfilled the obligations 
of the cross which he had taken up. In 1270 he conducted 
another expedition under the sacred bauner, this time against 
the Sultan of Tunis ; but pestilence fell upon his army, and he 
died. 

There are several other movements after this which are 
called crusades, but none that deserve the name. AYith the 
death of S. Louis the crusading movement was at an end. 

And what had been the result of it all ? Externally, very 
little. All the states that the Crusaders had founded were 
The results of swept away. The Mahomedan wave had receded 
the Crusades, for a moment, but soon it advanced again. Never- 
theless, the whole movement probably had acted as a useful 
check to Mahomedanism, when it was particularly dangerous 
and aggressive ; but, on the other hand, it must be remem- 
bered that the Latin conquest of Constantinople had materially 
weakened the chief bulwark of European Christianity. The 
indirect results of the movement were perhaps the most 
important. The feudal nobles had been taken away from their 
own countries, and their absence had allowed the monarchies 
of Europe to grow stronger. Commerce had received a great 
stimulus, and generally the East had come into contact with 
the West ; Western Europe had become acquainted with the 
civilization of the Greek Empire and the Mahomedan East ; 
and from the acquaintance new ideas were born and new 
movements, social and religious — some which we can trace, 
and more perhaps which conceal themselves from our scrutiny. 

Tout, Qihhon, as before ; and in addition, Cox's Crusades (Epoclis of 
Modern History). Villehardouins' Conquest of Constantinople is a very 
interesting chronicle. 



The Development of the Church 201 



CHAPTER XIV 

The Development of the Church during the Twelfth 
and Thirteenth Centuries 

The Cistercian Order 11 19 

The Franciscan Order 12 10 

How did the Church at the end of the struggle with the 
empire differ from what it had been at the beginning ? 

In organization it had much developed. The election of 
the pope was now in the hands of the cardinals, and was 
conducted according to well-understood principles. 
There had grown up in Rome a great machinery the ^overn- 
of government, as great as that possessed by any ment and 
kingdom or the empire itself. Great sums of ritualofthe 
money were constantly flowing into Rome, and at 
Rome was the Court of Appeal for all ecclesiastical cases from 
all parts of Europe. A great body of law, the Canon Law, 
was slowly evolved to guide and control decisions in ecclesias- 
tical cases. But not only the government of the Church had 
developed, there was change also in the ritual and in the 
doctrine of the Church. The celibacy of the clergy was more 
rigorously insisted on, though there were married clergy to be 
found in the Church down to the Reformation. We have 
already seen the growing importance of pilgrimages. The 
adoration of relics was a constant practice. But more im- 
portant than all was the worship of the Yirgin Mary, which 
ever increased in popularity and influence. The great S. 
Bernard's name and influence are specially associated with the 
cult of the Divine Mother, which, to the Mahomedans, seemed 
the distinguishing feature of Christianity. The worship of 
the saints, too, had come to assume a larger relative place 
in the ritual of the Church than it had formerly held. The 
Papacy of Innocent III. may be taken as the culminating 
point of the medieval Church. 

The monastic orders, as always since the days of S. 
Benedict, played an important part in the life of the Church. 



202 Outlines of European History 

We have seen what the Cluniac movemeiit was, and how, in the 
person of Gregory YIL, it became the chief influence in the 
The monastic Church. The next great wave of monastic energy 
orders. produced the Cistercian order. It was essentially 

a revivalist movement. It declared no new principles, but re- 
defined and emphasized the old ones. It owed its celebrity 
and its numbers to the influence of S. Bernard (1091-1153), 
who joined the order. At first the order declared against all 
beauty of architecture ; but soon, like the older orders, it 
began to erect stately and beautiful monasteries, as the remains 
so widely scattered over England testify. The Carthusian 
order rose about the same time (1100), but it rested on 
entirely difi'erent ideas from the Cistercian order ; for, while 
the Cistercians like the Cluniacs and the Benedictines lived 
together and avoided all separation and secrecy, the Carthusian 
order introduced the separate cell and prolonged silence. 

The monastic ideal was unchallenged in the Church during 
the twelfth century, but in the thirteenth century another and 
The Francis- ^^^T different ideal arose in the bosom of the 
can and Church itself to compete with it — the ideal of the 

Dominican friars. The friars were like the monks in that 
Fnars. ^^^^ ^^^^ regulars (lived, that is, according to 

a definite rule of life), and were pledged to obedience and to 
celibacy. But there the resemblance ends. The friars differed 
from the monks alike in method and in aim. While the 
monks lived screened from the contamination of the world 
by the walls of their cloister, the friars lived in the world 
and mixed purposely with the most degraded elements of it. 
While the monks aimed at the salvation of their own souls, 
the friars worked for the improvement and the conversion 
of the world. The vow which specially distinguished them 
was the vow of poverty. They were to possess no property, 
either personally or as an order. 

The friars were needed by the circumstances of the time. 
As the military Orders were wanted for the defence of the 
Holy Sepulchre against the Mahomedans, so the friars were 
the soldiers of the Church in its critical warfare with heresy 
and indifference among the masses of the people. For at the 
end of the twelfth century a new intellectual life was stirring 



The Development of the Church 203 

in Europe, which threatened hostility to the Church. Earher 
in the century the names of Abelard and Arnold of Brescia 
are associated with an attack on the fundamental ^^^ heresies 
conceptions of medieval theology, and on the of the twelfth 
life and practice of the clergy. Their move- and thirteenth 
ments were suppressed, but the same tendencies ^^^^""^s- 
were soon visible elsewhere. Especially in the south of 
France, in the district of Tianguedoc, ideas of the most 
various kinds on morals and theology found eager acceptance 
among the people. They are generally known as the 
Albigensian heresy, from one of the towns where the move- 
ment was strongest. They found protection in the court of the 
Count of Toulouse, and we have already seen how the pope 
declared a crusade against them, how terrible a ruin came 
upon the country, and how in the end the devastated land 
was annexed to the crown of France. 

The Albigensian movement was crushed down by a cruel 
soldiery and a relentless inquisition. The friars were much 
more effective in winning back the population to ^, ^ . 
the Church. The Franciscan order of friars was their work for 
founded first. It is a wonderful story how the the Church. 
Italian merchant, who later was called S. Francis, ^* Fi'^ncis. 
turned from the world and its wealth and " took poverty to 
be his bride ; " how he gathered round him men of like 
temper with himself ; how he and his companions went about 
begging their bread, in charity with all men and aU nature, 
and preaching to those who would listen, not in the Church's 
Latin, but in the common language of the people themselves. 
In 1210 S. Francis proposed that his association should be 
recognized and formed into an order, and at last he prevailed 
with Innocent III. Women were formed into a similar 
order ; and already before the saint died, in 1226, it was clear 
that the movement was going to have far-reaching effects. 

But the Franciscans (for so we must caU them, though 
S. Francis would have liked better to call them the " poor 
men of Assisi") were not alone. By their side The Domini- 
rose up the Dominicans founded by the Spaniard, can friars. 
S. Dominic (1170-1221). They took the same vows as the 
Franciscans, but there was in them from the first a more 



204 Outlines of European History 

strongly intellectual and combative bent ; so that they were 
naturally associated later with theological contests and the 
Inquisition. 

The mendicant friars spread rapidly over the whole 
Catholic world ; and rapidly, more rapidly than the monastic 
Decadence of orders, they fell from their early simpHcity and 
the friars. integrity. But they had done an important 
work ; they had reconciled the masses of the people to the 
Church, and made the Church seem to many the natural 
champion of the people. Heresy and indifference were 
notably diminished by their action. 

Thus at the end of the thirteenth century the Church 
seemed stronger than ever. It had decisively overthrown the 
empire ; it was carefully and successfully organized ; it was 
served by loyal and devoted bands of men. And when thus 
it seemed at the height of its power, there came upon it the 
most crushing blow in its history. 

Cotter Morison's Life of Saint Bernard. The Little Flowers of Saint 
Francis gives vivid pictures of the life and temper of the early 
Franciscans ; the ecclesiastical histories of Milman and Robertson. 



CHAPTER XV 
The Catastrophe of the Medieval Church 

Philip IV., King of France 1285 

Boniface VIII., Pope 1294 

*• Babylonish Captivity " begins 1305 

In 1285 Philip lY., often called Philip the Fair, succeeded 
to the throne of France, and it was in his reign that there 
Philip IV. of fell upon the Papacy the terrible blow to which 
France. ^e have alludcd. But Philip lY. is an im- 

portant king, quite apart from his religious policy, and it 
is to his development of the power of the French monarchy 
that we will first look. 



The Catastrophe of the Medieval Church 205 

He was soon engaged in an important war with FJanders. 
The Count of Flanders was one of the most powerful of the 
feudal nobles of France who still enjoyed practical indepen- 
dence. He was defeated, and surrendered his war with 
territories to the French King. The war seemed Flanders, 
over. But the cities of Flanders were rich, self-governed, 
well fortified, and proud of their liberties. The King of 
France was much in need of money, for as the machinery of 
government grew it needed more money to support it ; and, on 
the advice of his ministers, he laid taxes on the men of Flanders, 
whose flourishing commerce and industry made them well able 
to pay them. But the taxes seemed not only oppressive, but an 
infringement of their rights, and the country rose in rebellion 
in 1302. The chivalry of France marched against the burghers 
and met them near Courtrai ; but in the battle which followed, 
the royal army was misled by its contempt for the plebeian 
forces opposed to them, and was disastrously beaten. The 
battle is an important one in the history of war. For nearly 
a thousand years the horse-soldier had been the all-important 
arm. His predominance had not been shaken since the battle 
of Hadrian ople (378) ; but during the fourteenth century a 
great change came, and the heavily armoured knight became 
of less importance than the more lightly clad foot-soldier. 
The battle of Courtrai plays an important part in this change, 
and its lesson was soon to be reinforced by the battles of Crecy 
and Poitiers. The king raised another army, and the disaster 
of Courtrai was somewhat redeemed by a victory won in the 
next campaign ; but no attempt was made now to annex the 
whole country. A treaty was drawn up whereby the southern 
districts of Flanders were annexed to the crown of France, and 
the independence of the northern part was recognized. In 
spite of numberless efforts, France has never acquired the rich 
and desirable land that Philip lY. thus abandoned. 

Next came the great and epoch-making struggle with the 
Papacy. It is closely comparable with the ^^^.^^ | r 
action of the English king, Henry YIIL, two Phiiip iv. 
hundred years later. The question had nothing with the 
to do with doctrine or with the morals of the ^^P^^y- 
clergy ; it was a question of power. The King of France took 



2o6 Outlines of European History 

up and carried to a successful issue the quarrel in which the 
emperors had failed. 

Boniface YIII. was elected to the Papacy in 1294, and at 
first he was considered to be a friend of France. He held 
Pope Boni- views as to the supremacy of the Papacy over all 
face VIII. temporal powers which went even beyond the 
utterances of Innocent III. " We declare " he wrote, " that 
it is altogether necessary to salvation for every human creature 
to be subject to the Roman pontiff." On another occasion he 
is said to have exclaimed, " I am Caesar, I am the true emperor, 
and therefore superior over all princes of the earth." It was 
these principles which brought the Papacy into fatal collision 
with the French monarchy. 

The first conflict was on a question of finance. The king 
was always in money difficulties, and determined to tax the 
First coUision pi'operty of the clergy. Against this the pope 
with the protested in his bull Glericis Laicos, wherein he 

Papacy. denied the right of any temporal power to tax the 

Church, and threatened with excommunication alike those 
who exacted the tax and those who paid it. But the ground 
of the quarrel had not been well chosen by the pope. The bull 
caused great irritation both in England and France, and both 
Edward I. of England and Phihp lY. of France found means 
whereby they forced the pope to modify his bull. But very 
soon the struggle was renewed. A French bishop was accused 
of plotting against the king, and was put upon his trial in 
France. The pope protested that an ecclesiastic could only be 
tried in a Church court, and demanded that the case should 
be transferred to Rome. It was the same quarrel which in 
England produced the murder of Thomas a Becket and the 
penitence of Henry II. It was destined to produce far 
different consequences now. 

First there came fierce papal bulls and equally fierce royal 
replies. Forged papal bulls were even circulated, throwing 
The States- discredit on the Papacy by exaggerating its claims. 
General sum- In 1302 Philip IV., sensible of the seriousness of 
moned. j^]^g struggle, called in the people to his aid. He 

summoned the States-General for the first time. It was a body 
roughly representative of the three estates of the realm — the 



The Catastrophe of the Medieval Church 207 

clergy, the nobility, and the commons — and was destined to 
play a very important part in the history of France. The 
pope, unteiTified, answered the king's threats by a bull of 
excommunication. 

The next step was one the like of which had not been seen 
during the combat of the popes with the emperors. It was 
determined to attack the person of the pope him- The assault 
self, and to force him by the threat or the reahty of on Boniface 
physical violence to abdicate. The king's agents, ^^^^• 
of whom Nogaret was the chief, joined themselves to the 
pope's personal enemies in Eome, the family of the Colonnas. 
The pope, who was eighty-six years of age, was in his castle 
at Anagni. The conspirators forced their way into his 
presence ; they threatened and insulted the pope ; it was even 
said that they struck him. But he refused to yield. Arrayed 
in his pontifical robes, he resisted the clamour of his opponents ; 
and, though their prisoner, would not abdicate. 

The scene at Anagni produced a profound impression 
wherever it was told. Christ's earthly representative, so men 
said, had never been treated with such indignity. Christ in 
the person of his Yicar, wrote Dante, was mocked again ; the 
vinegar and the gall were again pressed to his lips ; he was 
slain, but this time the robbers lived. 

The outrage did not produce the results anticipated, but 
Philip IV. was determined to go on until the Papacy was 
humiliated. Boniface died in the same year, Election of 
1303, and much might be done by influencing Clement V. 
the papal elections. Boniface's immediate successor soon died, 
but then Clement, Bishop of Bordeaux, became pope, with the 
title of Clement Y., and it was soon known that before his 
election he had made certain promises to the French king. 
The chief were that he would free Philip lY. from the bull 
of excommunication and reconcile him to the Church, and 
that he would leave Rome and take up his residence beyond 
the Alps in the papal city of Avignon. He was accordingly 
installed at Lyons, and soon took up his quarters in the palace at 
Avignon. " The Babylonish Captivity of the Church " had begun. 

The Papacy had owed much of its medieval strength to the 
memories, sacred and secular, of the city of Rome, and still 



2o8 Outlines of European History 

more to its independence of any of the great European powers. 
The spiritual authority of the pope was recognized largely 
The Baby- because he was not the tool nor the agent of any 
lonishcap- crowned head in Europe. Now, so long as he 
tivity. remained in Avignon, this was at an end. True, 

he was not on French soil, but he was clearly in the power of 
France, and the rivals and the enemies of France would refuse 
to accept his word as the independent utterance of the Church. 
They would regard it as the voice of the King of France 
speaking through another channel. 

The destruction of the order of the Templars in France 
soon followed. The fall of this, the most famous of the 
Destruction military orders which the crusades had produced, 
of Templars, is to be traced primarily to the king's financial 
necessities ; for the king needed money, and the 
Templars were rich. Other charges were brought against 
them. They had sided with Pope Boniface in his struggle 
with the king. They no longer were fulfilling any obvious 
service. The Holy Land was again in the hands of the 
infidel, and, while the knights of St. John were still holding 
the island of Rhodes as an outpost against Mahomedanism, the 
Templars seemed satisfied to enjoy at their ease the vast 
wealth that their early services had won for them. Further, 
it was said that their character and even their faith had 
changed for the worse. Drunkenness was especially charged 
against them, and there were stories of strange and revolting 
ceremonies, and wild heresies practised and held by them. 

The time of their usefulness was past, but their suppression 
was marked by injustice and cruelty. Fifty-four Templars were 
burnt in Paris, the Grand-Master was executed, and at last, in 
1312, the whole order was declared abolished in a council 
summoned by the pope at Yienne in the south of France. 

It will be seen that all these events had added immensely 
to the strength of the monarchy. The Papacy, instead of 
Growth of being a dangerous rival, was now a servile instru- 
the power of ment of the French crown. The situation was 
the French not unlike that in England when Henry YIII. 
monarchy. became head of the Church. And the fall of the 
Templars had enriched the coffers of the king. In other ways, 



The Catastrophe of the Medieval Church 209 

too, the authority of the monarchy was increasing. The wide 
study and general acceptance of the principles of Roman law 
told strongly in favour of the royal authority in France, as 
elsewhere. The chief agents of the king in his struggle with 
the Papacy were lawyers versed in Roman law. 

In the States-General Philip lY. had called into being an 
instrument which was destined in the future often to resist the 
monarchy, and finally, nearly five hundred years xhe States- 
later, to overthrow it. But for the present it General in 
was an instrument of government, not of opposi- France, 
tion. The Parlement of Paris, too, was developed and 
organized, and this, too, ultimately became a jealous opponent 
of the royal authority. But for the present and for four 
centuries yet, it was the all-important instrument of the royal 
power ; through its agency the monarchy became the supreme 
judicial force throughout France. 

It is with these events that the Middle Ages may be said 
to come to an end. They begin with the recognition of the 
Christian Church by Constantine ; their dis- The end of 
tinguishing feature has been the growing power, the Middle 
and later, the predominance of the Cathohc ^S^^- 
Church in its monarchical Papal form. That Church was, of 
course, by no means at an end. But in 1305 it was fallen 
suddenly and far from its position in the days of Gregory YII., 
Innocent III., and Boniface YIIL, and it never again rises to 
that position. But it is not only the Church that changes at 
the beginning of the fourteenth century. Other distinguishing 
features of the Middle Ages have also disappeared. The 
empire undergoes a change as striking and disastrous as that of 
the Papacy ; the Crusades are at an end ; the Templars are 
destroyed ; the supremacy of the mounted knight is passing 
away. Henceforth, our chief concern is with the gradually 
emerging features of the modern world. 

As we pass from the medieval period, let us glance back 
and recall in a few sentences the chief transformations that 
Europe has undergone during these thousand years. 
In place of the Greek city-state, and the central- ^ °^^^^ ' 
ized administration of the Roman Empire, we have a great 
variety of monarchies, all resting more or less directly on the 

p 



2IO Outlines of European History 

ideas of feudalism. Underneath the monarchies there exist in 
many states (and in England in a more advanced form than 
elsewhere) the elements of popular representative government, 
in the Parliaments, States-General, Cortes, Diets, of the various 
states. Nowhere in Europe was there direct self-government 
by citizens such as some of the Greek states knew ; but 
nowhere was there a state so entirely despotic as the Roman 
Serfdom sub- Empire. In social matters the great change had 
stituted for been the almost complete disappearance of slavery 
slavery. ^nd the substitution of serfdom. The labourer 

was now no longer the property of his master, without personal 
rights, without domestic life, without a share in the religion of 
the State. He was bound to the land ; he was very largely at 
the mercy of his feudal superior ; it seemed hardly possible 
that he should either accumulate wealth or improve his legal 
position. But he had a house of his own ; he possessed land, 
though on a very servile tenure ; family life and the consola- 
tions of religion were within his power. The time came when 
the position of the serf, like that of the slave, seemed intolerable, 
but it cannot be doubted that serfdom marks a great step in 
the social progress of Europe. 

The contrast between the religious ideas of the classical 
world and those of medieval Europe is still greater. The gods 
and the philosophies of Greece and Rome have all faded away 
or become transformed beyond, recognition. The ideas of 
Catholic Christianity were found everywhere ; even the 
opponents of the Church imported no new ideas. The mystery 
of the Trinity and the Incarnation, the worship of the Virgin 
Mary and of the saints, the adoration of relics, the practice of 
pilgrimages, the power and organization of the Papacy, — 
these are more essential to the understanding of the Middle 
Ages than the constitution of the empire or the Papacy, the 
supremacy of the mounted knight, or the rise of representa- 
tive institutions. 

Miss Selfe's Chronicle of Villani as before. Kitchin's History of 
France ; Lodge's Close of the Middle Ages. 



France and the Hundred Years' War 211 



PART III 

THE MODERN WORLD 

CHAPTER I 
France and the Hundred Years' War 

Battle of Crecy 1346 

Peace of Bretigny 1360 

Battle of Agincourt 1415 

Death of Joan of Arc 1431 

Taxation and a Standing Army given ^ 

to the King of France / ^439 

End of the War 1453 

Louis XI 1461-1483 

We see in the tragic catastrophe of the medieval Church the 
end of the Middle Ages. One of the most marked features of 
the next two centuries is the rise of the nations of Europe to a 
self-conscious existence. The empire and the Papacy were both 
international or anti-national. But now in France, in Spain, 
and in England, the national spirit and the national organiza- 
tion made great advances. In Germany and Italy there were 
strong stirrings of the same spirit, though it did not for some 
centuries achieve victory to the same extent. 

France, as we have seen, had now taken in Europe the 
position which had been held by the medieval empire before 
its great collapse ; and the development of the France in the 
French monarchy is the thread which will best fourteenth 
carry us, so far as political and military history is century, 
concerned, through the next two centuries. We have seen how 
powerful and well organized the French monarchy was, and 
bow great a victory it had achieved over the Papacy. But 



212 Outlines of European History 

soon after the death of Philip lY. it became involved in a 
struggle with the kingdom of England, which brought upon 
both countries untold miseries, and in the end profoundly modi- 
fied the constitution and history of both countries, Philip lY. 
died in 1314, leaving behind him a large number of descen- 
dants, both children and grandchildren. The succession 
seemed assured ; and yet soon France was face to face with 
one of the most serious problems of succession that any 
European country has had to deal with. 

There seemed a blight on the family of Philip lY. His 
three sons reigned in succession, but each died after a short 
J . , reign, and each left only female children behind 
England to li™* The fourth child of Philip lY. was Isabella, 
the French who had married Edward II. of England, and 
throne. ^]^q[j, gQjj^ Edward III., was now reigning in Eng- 

land. And now Edward III. claimed the throne of France for 
himself. The details of this claim are well known, and will be 
found in all Histories of England. The legal points advanced, 
on the one side and on the other, have little reality. It was 
on the side of England a claim prompted by greed of conquest, 
and the resistance of France was actuated by a determination 
to avoid absorption in a rival and hostile power. 

It must be remembered that the English king, Edward III., 
had great possessions in France. The English kings had lost 
English pos- indeed, what they had once possessed as dukes of 
sessions in Normandy and Anjou, but most of what had come 
France. ^q them through Eleanor of Aquitaine, wife of 

Henry II., was still in their hands. For this territory they 
were the feudal dependants of the King of France ; and 
Edward III. had recognized at first the validity of the claims 
of Philip YI. to the throne of France by doing homage to 
him. But when the war broke out he soon took the title of 
King of France, and repudiated Philip YI.'s right to that 
name. 

The phrase, " The Hundred Years' War," is somewhat mis- 
leading. The two countries were by no means at war during 
The Hundred the whole of a century ; but from 1338 to 1453 
Years' War. the rivalry between the two countries was always 
ready to break out into open war. During these hundred years 



France and the Hundred Years' War 2 




WALKES 1 COCKERELL , OgU. 



I I English Territory . 1^1 French . mmk Burgundian ■ 

A Battlefields. 



France during the Hundred Years' War, showing the English and 
Burgundian Territories about 1420. 



214 Outlines of European History 

there are many events which reflect the greatest military glory 
upon the commanders and soldiers of the English army. But 
it is on that account the more necessary to point out that the 
general result was decidedly unfavourable to England. Even 
during the reign of Edward III., the English monarchy was 
driven from a great part of its possessions in France : and 
when the war closed, nothing of the once great English empire 
in France remained, except the one town of Calais and the 
country adjacent. 

The first phase from 1338 to 1360 was full of brilliant 
successes for the arms of England, and there was hardly any- 
Comparative ^^i"S ^^ P^^ 0^ ^^® other side. England was a 
strength of state far more united, far less feudal, far more 
England and directly governed by its king than France. And 
ranee. ^^^ early stages of the war illustrate the weakness 

of the aristocratic and feudal state when brought into conflict 
with a centralized monarchy. Feudalism in England had 
never given such power into the hands of the nobles as in 
France, and under Henry II. and Edward I. the royal power 
had made great advances. The army that fought for England 
was the king's army and was bound to carry out his orders ; 
the French army was very largely the army of the nobles, and 
they yielded to the king a very grudging obedience. But the 
English victory was not only due to political causes, it was 
due also to the superiority of the foot-soldiers whom England 
employed over the clumsy and over-weigbted chivalry of 
France, and to the superiority of the English long-bow over 
any missile weapons which the French used. 

So blow after blow fell upon France, and it seemed as 
though the whole state were on the eve of collapse. The French 
Early vie- ^^^^ beaten on the sea at Sluys in 1340; they 
tories of Were utterly crushed at Crecy in 1346, and at 

England. Poitiers in 1356. After Crecy, the English ob- 
tained possession of Calais, and thus had in their hands a gate 
through which they could invade France at any time. So hope- 
less was the condition of France, that in 1360 the government 
accepted the peace of Bretigny, whereby great territories were 
ceded to England, and Edward III., like Henry II. before him, 
ruled over more French soil than the French King himself. 



France and the Hundred Years' War 215 

The English renewed the war soon after the peace of 
Bretigny, but not with the former success, and the cause of the 
change is to be found in the new methods employed The end of 
by France. In 1364 Charles Y., known as Charles EngUsh 
"le Sage,"—" the Prudent "—mounted the throne, victory, 
and under his rule, though France has no days of glory to counter- 
balance Crecy and Poitiers, the flood of English conquest ebbs 
rapidly. And the reason is that the rulers of France cast 
aside feudal and medieval methods and ideas, and the English 
armies were met by forces not much unlike themselves. The 
feudal levies were no longer the mainstay of France ; her 
king raised mercenary forces — the great " companies " — and 
placed them in the hands of a capable leader ; and he found 
in Bertrand du G-uesclin a leader of consummate abilities for 
the sort of war in which France was engaged. The French 
troops no longer, in a spirit of rash chivalry, accepted battle 
when the English offered it. They refused to run the risk 
of another Crecy or Poitiers ; but tbey harassed the enemy, cut 
off his communications, deprived him of supplies, and offered 
tenacious resistance to him in fortified places. When Edward 
III. died, in 1377, his possessions were far smaller than at 
his accession. He held Calais, Bordeaux, Bayonne, and a 
strip of territory adjoining, and beyond that nothing. But 
the memory of the great victories made it certain that the 
English claims would be taken up again, if any English king 
felt himself strong enough to enforce them. 

One incident had occurred in 1362 which seemed a great 
gain to the French crown, and which in the end proved to be a 
most serious danger. In that year the territories France and 
of the Duke of Burgundy came into the possession Burgundy. 
of the French king. But instead of annexing them to the 
royal domain, John had granted them to his fourth son, Philip. 
It was hoped, doubtless, that the tie of blood would prevent 
him from using his power in hostility to the French crown ; 
but, in the hands of the successors of Philip, this Burgundian 
power proved to be an enemy to the crown of France more 
dangerous and determined than any of the earlier feudal nobles 
had been. 

The crown of France had thus by its own folly raised up a 



2i6 Outlines of European History 

dangerous rival, and upon the death of Charles Y. it fell into 
weak and incompetent hands. For Charles YI. was at his 
accession only twelve years of age, and as he grew 
Charles VI. ^^ manhood his intellect gave way. He was not 
permanently insane, in which case another ruler might have 
been appointed, and yet his flickering intelligence was utterly 
unequal to the real government of France. 

Peace with England was for some time maintained, and 
Richard II. of England married the king's daughter, Isabella of 
Armagnacs France. But while peace was maintained with 
and Bur- the external enemies of France, a civil war broke 
gundians. Q^t. The king's weakness, and the possible failure 
of sons to succeed him, offered a great prize to the greed of the 
princes. For the king could not rule, and if the king's sons 
died, who was to succeed him ? Two families were rivals for 
the great prize, holding positions very like those of the Yorkists 
and Lancastrians in English history half a century later. On the 
one hand was the Orleanist party. The Duke of Orleans was 
the king's brother, and after the duke's murder in 1407, his 
place was taken by a relative, the Duke of Armagnac. So that 
this party is sometimes known as the Orleanist and sometimes 
as the Armagnac party. It was supported by the feudal 
aristocracy of France, who saw a chance of the restoration of 
their old independent authority. On the other side were 
the Burgundians, led by the Duke of Burgundy, who was, for 
the most part, in alliance with the citizens of Paris, and who 
seconded their aspirations to municipal independence. Civil 
war broke out between these rivals, and was not ended when 
danger threatened from England. For there Henry lY. died 
in 1413, and was succeeded by Henry Y., who was impelled to a 
war by his own energy and ability, and the desire to turn men's 
eyes away from his own doubtful right to the English throne. 

This new phase of the war plunged France into deeper 
humiliation than she had sunk to even in the period of Crecy 
h dis- ^^^ Poitiers, and for a time transferred the crown 
asters during of France into English hands. Consider how un- 
the reign of favourable the conditions were to France. Her 
Charles VI. ^[-Qg ^as a madman with rare and dangerous inter- 
vals of sanity. His weakness had allowed the feudal powers 



France and the Hundred Years* War 217 

to rise into strength again, and a civil war was actually being 
waged. And one of the parties in this civil war — the Bur- 
gundians — was willing to accept the alliance of the English 
king and to consent to the dismemberment of France, or its 
absorption in the crown of England, if the dukes of Burgundy 
might at the same time secure advantages. Henry Y. there- 
fore entered on the war with more than the advantages which 
had been possessed by Edward III. 

His success was overwhelming and rapid. At Agincourfc in 
1415 the French were defeated more heavily than at Orecy or 
Poitiers. Normandy fell into English hands. An p^. 
endeavour to reconcile the Burgundians and occupied by 
Armagnacs ended in the assassination of the Duke Henry v. of 
of Burgundy and a closer union between the Bur- England, 
gundians and the English. At last, in 1420, by the Treaty of 
Troyes, an arrangement was made whereby Henry Y. was to 
marry the Princess Catherine ; to rule as regent so long as 
Charles YI. lived ; and to reign as King of France upon his death. 
The enemy still had an army in existence, but Henry Y. was 
in possession of power and prospects such as had never fallen 
to the lot of any English king before. Then, in 1422, death 
carried off both the vigorous warrior Henry Y. and the poor 
imbecile Charles YI. 

When his son, Charles YII., came to the throne the out- 
look for a King of France could not well be blacker. Burgundy 
and England between them seemed to control Revival of 
France. The royal armies were only safe to the the French 
south of the Loire. It seemed that by the com- power, 
bined efforts of England and Burgundy they could be easily 
destroyed. And yet Charles YIL's reign, which opened with 
such dismal auspices, was destined to see the end of the English 
dominion in France, and the king himself was to gain, if not 
quite to deserve, the title of Charles " the Yictorious." 

The causes of this great change are clearly written in the 
history of this time. The positions of the two warring states 
became almost reversed. It was the English — conditions 
not the French — king who was imbecile ; it was favourable to 
England that was torn by the factions which later France, 
produced the Wars of the Roses, while France was united by 



2i8 Outlines of European History 

the reconciliation of the Burgundian faction with the French 
monarchy. Military efficiency had at first been on the side of 
England, and the long-bow had given her soldiers a superiority 
over the clumsier weapons on the other side. Bat now energy, 
discipline, and confidence returned to the side of France ; and 
in the use of gunpowder they found a force which more than 
counterbalanced the weapons of their opponents. Thus the 
conditions became favourable to France ; and yet they would 
not have proved so decisive had it not been for the marvellous 
career of Joan of Arc. 

For the first six years of the new reign the English added 
success to success. Yictories in Normandy and in the upper 
valleys of the Seine showed the continued superiority of the 
English. In 1428 they laid siege to Orleans, and, if that great 
city fell, the key to the centre of France would be in the hand 
of England. Then Joan of Arc arose. Her career defies the 
analysis of cause and effect more than any other in European 
history ; but its essential result was to give confidence to France 
and to scare the enemy with superstitious terrors. We must 
not tell the story of her heroic life or her tragic death. When 
she was burnt in 1431, the English were still the dominant 
power in France, but their hold was loosening. It was partly 
the result of the wonderful maid's work that in 1435 Philip 
of Burgundy definitely abandoned the English alliance, 
and made terms with the King of France in the Peace of 
Arras. 

From this time onwards the victories of France were un- 
interrupted. In 1450 the English fought their last battle in 
End of the Normandy, and in 1453 the battle of Oastillon 
war: its in Aquitaine brought the long contest to an end. 
general ifc had been one of the most terrible wars in 

results. history, and the devastation done in some parts 

of France can hardly be exaggerated. The political results of 
the war to France — and this should be carefully noted — were 
to strengthen the power of the monarchy. The feudal nobility 
had received the most deadly blow at Crecy, Poitiers, and 
Agincourt, and their military prestige could hardly survive 
these humiliating days. When victory had come, it had come 
through the agency of hired soldiers and commanders who were 



France and the Hundred Years' War 219 

not of the high nobility, through du Guesclin and Joan of Arc 
and the use of gunpowder — that worst enemy of the feudal 
noble. But the monarchy had not only gained by Growth in the 
this elimination of its rivals. A constitutional power of the 
step taken towards the end of the war had monarchy, 
strengthened the crown even more than men saw at the time. 
This was the ordonnance of 1439. By this ordonnance, in the 
first place, the king was allowed to collect a tax on land and 
property called the taille, and the money thus obtained he was 
to devote to the maintenance of a standing army. A comparison 
with English history shows clearly the vast importance of this 
stipulation. The control of Parliament over taxes and the 
absence of a standing army are the two chief instruments 
whereby Parliamentary government has been established in 
England. And the ordonnance of 1439 gave a very elastic 
tax and a standing army into the hands of the king. Thus the 
ordonnance of 1439 is a sort of inverted Magna Carta ; for 
as that ensured in the end the establishment of Parliamentary 
government in England, so the ordonnance laid the foundations 
upon which the French absolute monarchy rested until its over- 
throw at the time of the Revolution. 

Thus the French monarchy, as a result of the Hundred 
Years' War, which so nearly destroyed it, became stronger and 
more centralized, and ruled over a wider territory ^ . „, 
than before. And the work of Charles YIL was 
carried forward and completed by his greater successor, Louis 
XI. (1461-1483). This great king has often figured in romance 
as a cruel, unscrupulous, superstitious tyrant, and during the last 
years of his reign there was much in his character and actions 
which justifies this reputation. But his historical importance 
is due to the fact that he completed the growth of the French 
monarchy into a strong, well-organized absolutism. There was 
during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries a general tendency 
towards the weakening of aristocratic power and the substitution 
of vigorous monarchical rule. Something of this sort happened in 
England and Spain, but France is the best example ; and Louis 
XL was the man who finally beat down the power of the nobles 
and made the monarchy the one supreme influence in the land. 

His great rival and enemy was Charles the Bold, Duke of 



2 20 Outlines of European History 

Burgundy. We have already seen the origin of his power. 
The extent of his territories are indicated on an adjoining map 
Charles the (P* 213). They resemble to some extent the old 
Bold, Duke kingdom of Lotharingia, which was created by the 
of Burgundy. Treaty of Yerdun in 843 ; and they stretched from 
the mouth of the Rhine to the river Rhone, though there was 
a gap between the northern and southern parts. Note, too, 
this curious fact about his position. He was nowhere an 
independent sovereign : he owed feudal homage for part of his 
territories to the emperor, and for a part to the King of France, 
and yet he seemed at times stronger than either. 

As a soldier he was bold to rashness, and his fierce, head- 
long character forms a strange contrast with that of the astute 
Charles the ^^^ ^^^^ King of France. Charles the Bold, too, 
Boldde- allied himself to the leading nobles of France, 

feated. and his struggle with Louis XI. was a contest 

between the aristocratic and monarchical principles of govern- 
ment. "We must not even glance at the details of this famous 
rivalry. Louis XL was at times in very great danger ; but his 
cunning and tenacity, profiting by his adversaries' blunders, 
carried the day. The Duke of Burgundy was outwitted and 
defeated, and in 1477 was killed in battle with the Swiss, who 
had been raised up against him by the diplomacy of Louis XL 
The fall of Charles was a very heavy disaster for the nobles 
of France ; they never again had so good a chance of making 
themselves independent of the French crown. 

We need only notice further what became of the territories 
of Charles the Bold. A large portion of them became French 
Partition of territory (Picardy, Artois, and the duchy of 
the territories Burgundy). Louis XL had hoped to acquire the 
of Charles whole by marrying Mary, the daughter and only 
the Bold. ^1^-]^ of Charles the Bold, to his son. But the 
suit failed, and Mary married the Emperor Maximilian. It was 
one of the most fateful marriages in European history ; for 
Marriage of Ptiiiip? the Bon of Mary and Maximilian, married 
Mary of Joanna, the heiress of the Spanish crown ; and 

Burgundy. their son Charles Y. inherited all that belonged 
to the empire and the House of Austria, all the possessions of 
the crown of Spain, and most of the territory of Charles the 



France and the Hundred Years' War 221 

Bold. The sixteenth century was to show the vast importance 
of this agglomeration of territory for the history of Europe. 
We have thus passed in rapid survey through nearly two 




CHarles the Bold of Burgundy. 
{From the Painting by Roger v. d. Weyden in the Museum at Brussels.) 



centuries of French history, and we have seen how France 
had become at the end of the fifteenth century 
the strongest and best-compacted power in ^ ^^^^ ' 
Europe. We must now return and review the destinies of the 
Church, and of Germany and Spain during the same period. 



222 Outlines of European History 

Froissart's Chronicles illustrate the first period of the war. There 
is a useful abridgment by G. G. Macaulay. Jeanne d'Arc by Mrs. 
Oliphant (Heroes of the Nations). Charles the Bold by Buth Putnam 
(Heroes of the Nations). Zeller's Histoire de France racontee par les 
contemporams is useful throughout. 



CHAPTER II 

The History of the Church during the Fourteenth 
and Fifteenth Centuries 

End of Babylonish Captivity 1377 

The Great Schism 1378 

Council of Constance 1414 

Council of Basel 1431 

Fall of Constantinople 1453 

We have already seen how, in 1305, as a result of French 
violence and intrigue, the Papacy had abandoned Rome and 
The Baby- taken up its residence at Avignon by the banks 
lonishcap- of the Rhone. Avignon was a papal city, the 
tivity. property of the popes, and the popes were by 

no means really prisoners there, though the title, "the 
Babylonish captivity," is usually given to the period of their 
residence there. Still, their strength and prestige were bound 
up with the city of Rome, and the popes in Avignon seemed 
to be the tools of the kings of France. The Papacy lost its 
position of independence, and upon that all its influence 
depended. " The captivity " lasted for more than seventy years, 
from 1305 to 1377, and the history of the Papacy knows no 
darker period. The popes of Avignon had a bad name for 
servility, for vice, and even for heresy. It is during their 
residence there that attacks began to be made on them by such 
men as Wickliffe in England, and they never really regained 
the ground they had lost until the time of the Reformation. 
There were several proposals for their return to Rome. The 
city and the states of the Church were rapidly falling into the 
hands of the feudal aristocracy, and the return of the popes 
was necessary to restore Ehe authority of the Papacy within 



The Great Schism 223 

its own possessions. At last, in 1377, Gregory XL went back 
to Rome, and the captivity was over. 

But a new calamity almost imraediately fell upon the 
Papacy; "the great Schism" began in 1378. In that year 
Gregory XI. died, and the cardinals elected The Great 
Urban YI. But soon the thirteen cardinals who Schism, 
were in the French interest declared that the election had 
been improperly conducted, and they proceeded to elect 
Clement VII. There had been several occasions in earlier 
ages when two men had claimed at the same time the title of 
pope ; but those "schisms" had soon been terminated, whereas 
this, " the Great Schism," lasted on in spite of all efforts to 
stop it until 1417. The political divisions of Europe were 
largely responsible for the perpetuation of the division. 
England sided with one pope, France with another : the 
empire was at the same time torn by factions, and these 
factions connected themselves with the division in the Church. 
The schism did not die out with the deaths of Urban YI. and 
Clement YII. Each faction elected a successor to them, and 
there is a succession of both Urbanist and Clementist popes. 
The condition of things was a scandal to the Church and to 
Christendom. Each pope used all the weapons of the Church 
against the other ; and as a result men's minds in Europe 
became more and more inclined to criticise the papal claims 
altogether. Wickliffe in England was soon followed by Huss 
in Bohemia, and papal claims were never again universally 
accepted until Luther arose to inaugurate the great Protestant 
Reformation. 

Other means were suggested, but it was determined in the 
end to have recourse to the means whereby disputes had been 
settled in the early ages of the Church, to summon How to end 
a general council and to submit to it the question the schism, 
of how to restore unity to the Christian Church of the West. 
But it proved to be no easy task to restore unity to the Church 
by means of councils. The first effort indeed only added to 
the prevailing confusion. A council was called at Pisa in 
1409, and both popes were expected to attend. Neither of 
them in the end was willing to come. The council elected a 
pope, John XXIIL, to supersede the other two, but as neither 



224 Outlines of European History 

of them resigned, the result was that there were three instead 
of two claimants for the title of pope. 

Five years later (1414) another effort was made. A great 
council was summoned to Constance, and it was attended by 
The Council an immense concourse of people ; eighteen hundred 
of Constance, clergy and one hundred thousand laymen are said 
to have been present during the course of its sessions, which 
lasted for over four years. The Emperor Sigismund was the 
chief influence in the council, which proceeded to consider the 
general condition of the Church, and not only the existing 
schism. But the restoration of the papal monarchy, the 
substitution of one head of the Church for three, was the most 
pressing need of the times. John XXIII. had expected to be 
nominated sole pope ; and, when he found that that was not 
to be, he fled from Constance, was caught, and detained in 
captivity. It was not until 1417 that a solution was reached. 
Then two of the existing three popes were declared deposed, 
one resigned, a new pope was chosen in the person of Martin Y., 
and none disputed his claims to rule. 

The Council of Constance also occupied itself with other 
reforms. It declared that a general council had the right to 
decide in all cases of a disputed papal election ; it 
poised at the regulated the method of election and limited the 
Council of number of the cardinals ; it proposed to remedy 
Constance. jj^any of those abuses in the administration of the 
Church which a century later did much to produce the 
Eeformation. The right of the pope to tax, to judge, and to 
dispense subjects from the obligation of laws was considered 
and legislated against, but all the efforts of the council on this 
head were in vain. Either the measures proposed were not 
passed, or, if passed, they were quickly suspended. The Church 
proceeded for another century on much the old lines, until the 
Protestant revolution forced on reform by disaster. 

The Council of Constance, while it curbed the power of the 
Papacy, was very anxious to maintain its own orthodoxy ; and it 
proved its hatred of heresy by burning the heretic 
John Huss. John Huss. Huss had preached in Bohemia the 
doctrines which Wickliffe had planted in England, and the 
Hussite movement had assumed alarming proportions. While 



Council of Basel 225 

tlie council was restoring unity to the government of the 
Church, it desired also to restore uniformity of doctrine. Huss 
was accordingly summoned to the council, and the Emperor 
Sigismund gave him a promise of safety. The council deter- 
mined to violite this promise on the ground that faith need 
not be kept with heretics, and Huss was burnt outside 
the walls of Constance. But the Hussite movement was by 
no means at an end. It assumed for some time an even more 
menacing form in Bohemia, and was only crushed eventually 
with great difficulty. 

Note carefully the general result of the Council of Con- 
stance. It declared the superiority of councils over the 
Papacy ; it showed that the old absolutist Papacy ^ , 
as it had been in the days of Gregory YII. and result of the 
Innocent III. had come to shipwreck ; it sub- Council of 
stituted for a time a sort of aristocratic republican Constance, 
government inside the Church in place of the former centralized 
rule by one man. 

Thirteen years later (1431), another great council was 
called at Basel. The reform of the abuses of the Church was 
its declared object, and the unceasing victories of Council of 
the Hussites in Bohemia seemed to make some Basel, 
sort of reform imperative. The Council of Basel was a much 
more democratic body than the Council of Constance : it aimed 
at more, and, as a matter of fact, it did less. It was divided 
into separate committees dealing with the various departments 
of the Church in which reform was thought necessary. The 
pope resisted its claims, for the Papacy naturally would never 
consent to be superseded by councils ; and in consequence of 
the pope's hostility, a new schism seemed on the point of 
commencement. For the council declared the reigning pope 
deposed and elected another in his place. But the newly 
elected pope resigned, and the schism was avoided. The Basel 
council accomplished nothing of importance. It was the 
Hussite war which had called it into being, and in 1434 the 
religious rebels in Bohemia, after a series of wonderful successes, 
were at last crushed and their leader killed. 

The fifteenth century saw other "councils'* of import- 
ance even after the ignominious failure of the Council of 

Q 



2 26 Outlines of European History 

Basel, and the next council was called by the pope. For while 

the Church of the West was being torn by heresy and schism, 

o . r there seemed at last a chance of reuniting the 
Reunion oi , ^tt /^t i ttt ■ . 

Eastern and Eastern and Western Churches. We must cast a 

Western last glance upon the history of the Greek empire at 

Churches. Constantinople. For there was still an empire there, 
which was descended from the old Roman empire, and still 
called itself Roman. We have seen how seriously it had been 
weakened by the fourth crusade, and though the Latin empire 
had fallen and the Greek language and the Greek form of 
Christianity again prevailed, the empire never recovered its 
former strength. The Mahomedan power was pressing upon 
it with ever-increasing weight. The Turkish forces had seized 
large tracts of territory in Europe, and occupied all Asia Minor. 
It was the city of Constantinople alone that resisted them ; and 
the city, in spite of its vast strength, must clearly fall unless 
help came from outside. The Eastern emperors, in their 
extremity, appealed to Western Europe, and, in order to revive 
again the languishing crusading zeal, they held out the hope 
that they might relinquish whatever in doctrine or Church 
government kept them apart from Rome. It was to heal the 
long-standing division of the Eastern and Western Churches, 
and to receive the submission of Constantinople, that the pope 
summoned a council at Ferrara. Seven hundred Greeks pre- 
sented themselves, and they debated upon '' the procession of 
the Holy Ghost," upon the use of unleavened bread, and, above 
all, on the supremacy of the pope. An agreement was entered 
into, and a papal bull declared the union of the Churches. But 
the first proposal was rejected by the pride of Constantinople, 
and it was not until the Mahomedan was at her gates that 
the proud city bowed her head to Rome. The Festival of 
Union was held in December, 1452. 

But, alas I the union did not avail to ward off the 
impending doom from the great city. Constantinople was 
Fall of Con- stormed on May 29, 1453, and the crescent waved 
stantinople. where the cross had stood for more than eleven 
hundred years. 

If we return to summarize the history of the Church daring 
the fifteenth century, we see that without doubt its power and 



Germany in the Fifteenth Century 227 

prestige were much shaken. The very summoning of the 
councils showed that the papal authority no longer availed to 
settle questions, which would formerly have been Summary 
thought clearly within its province. Power was of results, 
passing in some instances from the pope to the bishops, and in 
others national feeling was beginning to refuse submission to a 
foreign power. Towards the end of the century the popes 
seemed almost to accept the new condition of things, or at least 
no longer to struggle against it. They occupied themselves 
with the temporal interests of the papal state, in some cases to 
the neglect of the spiritual interests of the Church universal. 
The Church drifted heedlessly into the great storm which was 
soon to fall upon it. 

Lodge's Close of the Middle Ages and tiie Ecclesiastical Histories 
already mentioned ; Creighton's History of the Papacy. 



CHAPTER III 

The Political Condition of Germany, Spain, and Italy 
in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries 

The Venetian Government a Close Oligarchy 1297 

Battle of Morgarten 1315 

The Golden Bull 1356 

Lorenzo de' Medici 1469 

Since the end of the Hohenstaufen line in 1268, Germany was 
without any effective central government. The empire had 
collapsed, and with it the kingdom of Germany. Rise of the 
For some time there was an interregnum. No House of the 
emperor was recognized, and the elements of the Hapsburgs. 
German state struggled among one another without umpire or 
control. In 1273 Rodolph of Hapsburg became emperor, and 
reigned until 1291. The imperial sceptre soon passed for a 
while out of his family ; but he is regarded as the founder 
of the great Hapsburg house, and his descendants sat for 
centuries on the throne of the Holy Roman empire, and still sit 



2 28 Outlines of European History 

upon the throne of the Austrian empire. But though the 
empire came into shadowy existence again, Germany was not 
reaUy controlled by it. The centrifugal tendency worked on 
almost unchecked ; the different states and cities shook 
themselves free of all effective control. 

In the course of the fourteenth century the constitution of 
the empire was at last defined ; but it was so defined as to 
The Golden proclaim its impotence. The Golden Bull issued 
Bull. by the Emperor Charles lY. deals largely with 

ridiculously small matters of etiquette ; but it laid down certain 
principles upon which the future political life of Germany 
rests. It left no doubt that the empire was elective, and 
that those who had the right to elect were the Archbishops 
of Mainz, Trier (Treves), and Koln (Cologne), and the King 
of Bohemia, the Count Palatine of the Rhine, the Duke of 
Saxony, and the Margrave of Brandenburg. It was further 
declared that these electors were for all practical purposes 
supreme within their dominions, and that their territories 
should descend to their successors as a whole, and not be 
partitioned among all the sons. 

The doom of the empire was written in the Golden Bull. 
But, as a consequence of the weakness of the empire, the 
The leagues different units of the German state formed them- 
of Germany, selves into unions and leagues for common 
purposes. The chief of them was the Hanseatic League, con- 
sisting of the commercial towns of the north. The first 
members were Liibeck, Rostock, and Stralsund ; but it came 
to include the chief trading centres of the Baltic. It existed 
for mutual protection in commerce, and for a century and a 
half was a very powerful organization. 

During the same period there rose up an independent 
power in the south-west of the empire. Nearly the whole 
The rise of ^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ Switzerland was within the 
the Swiss frontiers of the empire, and the central region 
Confedera- of [^ formed part of the Hapsburg dominions. In 
tion. ^291 Schwytz, Uri, and Unterwalden formed a 

league for mutual protection ; and when in 1315 Leopold of 
Austria tried to coerce them, he was resisted and defeated in 
the battle of Morgarten. The league grew by success. Five 



Spain in the Fifteenth Century 



229 



other cantons joined ; and in 1386 the league again defeated 
the imperial forces in the battle of Sempach. A splendid and 
heroic episode in the history of the century is covered by these 
few statements. Liberty found a home in the mountains of 
Switzerland, from which she has never been expelled. During 
the fifteenth century the league grew and prospered ; and 
when later Charles the Bold of Burgundy tried to crush it, 
he found the mountaineers too strong for him (1476). 

While Germany was thus drifting further and further from 




WarsMp ol the Hanseatio League in the Fourteenth Century. 



unity and concentration of government an exactly opposite 
tendency was in progress in Spain, which at the ^ . 
end of the fifteenth century appeared unexpectedly 
as one of the great military monarchies of Europe. TVe have 
seen nothing of Spain since the days of Charlemagne. We saw 
then how the first blow had been struck against the Moorish 
and Mahomedan supremacy. The Moorish supremacy had 
ebbed ever since. For some time the Moors had been in 
advance of any part of Europe in enlightenment ; but their 
power was wrecked by civil war among the rulers and by the 



230 Outlines of European History 

impossibility of conciliating the Christian subjects of the 
Moorish kings. It was not until the thirteenth century that 
Christians began to establish their superiority in arms over 
their hated oppressors, but from that time onwards the Moorish 
power gradually but continuously receded. 

The victory over the Moors was not the result of any 
common action by the whole Christian population of Spain. It 
The unity was the work of several independent states which 
of Spain. ^ere established on the land won from the Moors, 
whose aspirations to independence colour and explain a great 
deal of Spanish history. Of the states of Spain, Aragon and 
Castile were by far the most important. Castile was in touch 
with the surviving Moorish kingdom of Granada ; Aragon was 
ruled by a strong monarchy, and had a fruitful commerce. 
In 1469, Isabella, the heiress of Castile, married Ferdinand, the 
heir of Aragon, and the union of Spain was ultimately brought 
about as a result of the marriage. 

Spain sprang with wonderful suddenness into the ranks 
of the great Powers of Europe. Her people were trained to 
The import- war by the long struggle against the Moors, and 
ance of Spain, they soon proved themselves the finest infantry 
in Europe. No population in Europe was so devoutly, so 
aggressively Catholic, for Catholicism was to them not merely 
a religion but a racial bond and rallying cry in their war 
against the infidel Moors. In the next age the Papacy found 
a stronger support in Spain than elsewhere in Europe. During 
the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Moorish kingdom of 
Granada was destroyed ; the power of the monarchy was asserted 
against the aristocracy and the cities of Spain ; America was 
discovered ; alike on land and sea Spain made good her claim 
to be one of the first Powers in Europe. Unfortunately her 
greatness was tarnished by the atmosphere of religious bigotry, 
which pervaded the land and in the end did much to ruin it. 

Italy in the fifteenth century presents us with an extraordinary 
spectacle. Intellectually it was far in advance of the rest of 
Europe. The Renaissance had fully begun. Its characteristics 
will he summarized in the next chapter, but the brilliant 
intellectual life of Italy must be borne in mind while we look 
at the grave political and social dangers which threatened her. 



Italy in the Fifteenth Century 231 

For Italy was developing along lines very different from 
those pursued by England and France and Spain. There all 
the forces of the time were working in favour of Italian 
political unity and centralization. But in Italy disunion, 
there was no principle of political unity to be found. From 
the Papacy, which was essentially cosmopolitan, no unity could 
come, and there was no state in Italy powerful enough to 
force its will on the others. Thus Italy was a geographical 
expression, and contained a large number of quite independent 
states. The chief were Genoa, Milan, Venice, Florence, 
Rome, Naples, and we shall shortly examine some of these more 
closely ; but besides these there was a large number of others, 
either possessing or claiming complete independence. 

Amongst these many states no principle of order was to be 
found. All alliances were as transitory as they had been 
among the city-states of ancient Greece, and the peuds and 
only constant principle seemed to be that all factions in 
ishould join against any state which was for the Italy- 
moment stronger than the others. Between certain states 
there were constant feuds, as between Florence and Pisa, 
Milan and her neighbours, Venice and Genoa ; but, for the 
most part, the relations of the states of Italy were singularly 
unstable. The cities, too, were themselves rent by factions, 
>hich usually took the titles of Guelfs and Ghibellines. The 
Guelfs had originally been the papal faction, and the Ghibellines 
the imperial ; but the names had lost their meaning, and were 
little more than empty titles for factions which pursued purely 
selfish aims. 

Another feature of Italian life, which completes the analogy 
with decadent Greece, is that the states had for the most part 
abandoned the employment of citizen troops, and Emoiovment 
were using mercenaries in their quarrels. The of mercenary 
captains of these bands — the condoitieri — and the soldiers, 
troops they commanded were drawn from almost every country 
in Europe. They usually served faithfully the states which 
paid them ; but it is clear that their employment exposed Italy 
to a foreign conquest, as it had brought Greece under the yoke 
of Macedon many centuries before. 

Of all the cities of Italy, Venice was the most prosperous 



232 



Outlines of European History 



Venice. 



and the best governed. The inhabitants loved to recall a 
legend that their city had been founded by Romans, who fled 
from the Eternal City when it was threatened by 
the barbarians ; and certainly Venice alone of 
all the Italian states reproduced something of the dignity 
and firmness, the tenacity of purpose and orderliness of life 
which had distinguished republican Eome. No city in the 
world has so strange a situation. The islands of Venice hardly 
rise above the waters, and the soil is so soft and yielding that 
wooden piles have to be driven into it before any buildings can 




A Scene in Venioe. ^ ' 

The Grand Canal opens between the two rows of houses. St. Mark's Cathedral and the 
now fallen Campanile are outside of the picture on the right. The church on the left 
is S. Maria della Salute. 



be erected ; and yet upon this soft and unstable basis was 
reared one of the fairest of all medieval cities. Two geographical 
features go far to explain the situation of the city. First, ifc 
was, before the invention of cannon of long range, wonderfully 
defensible. It was defended on the side of the mainland, not 
only by a stretch of sea, but also by unhealthy marshes ; and on 
the side of the Adriatic, ships found a difficult passage between 
the islands that separate the lagoons from the sea. The second 
important geographical feature is the tide. The Mediterranean 
is usually spoken of as a tideless sea ; but there is a slight tide, 
and, over the flats and shallows which surround Venice, the 



Italy in the Fifteenth Century 233 

tide moves with sufficient force to keep the city healthy. 
Where the lagoons are not affected by the tide, they are 
uninhabitable. 

The whole strength of Venice lay in her commerce. She 
was the point of connection between the East and the "West. 
Until the Cape route was discovered, all the The com- 
merchandise of the East was brought to Venice, merce of 
and from thence transported by caravan into Venice. 
Germany, France, and all parts of Europe. The State made 
vast profits on all goods that passed through her harbour. 

The Government of Venice was by the beginning of the 
fourteenth century a close oligarchy or aristocracy. The 
popular or democratic element had at first been The g-overn- 
strong, and it had been by a vote of the people ment of 
that the Doge or President was elected. But, in Venice, 
time, the aristocracy had drawn all power into their own 
hands. The Great Council of Venice was, like the Senate at 
Rome, an essentially aristocratic assemblage, though nominally 
elective. But, in 1297, what is known as the " Closing of the 
Great Council'* took place, and henceforth none but those 
belonging to the high nobility could find an entrance into the 
Council. The executive government of the state was vested 
in a small committee, " The Council of Ten." There was no 
government in Italy to compare with that of Venice for good 
order, vigour, and efficiency. 

Florence presents a great contrast to Venice in every way ; 
there is instability instead of order, fierce factions instead of 
unity ; and democracy gives way, not to oligarchy, 
but to the kind of despotism which the Greeks o^^^^e. 
called tyranny. The factions in Florence were known as the 
Guelfs and the Ghibellines, and the former represented, on the 
whole, democratic aspirations, while the latter stood for 
aristocracy. The rivalry of these two factions and their 
alternate triumphs filled Florence with unrest, but in 1434 a 
new power emerged. The commercial family of the Medici 
had been identified with the popular cause, and its chief, 
Cosimo de' Medici, had been banished from Florence. Cosimo de' 
But a popular rising overthrew his opponents and Medici, 
recalled him from banishment. He became at first the leader. 



234 Outlines of European History 

and then the master of Florence. For many generations after 
this the history of Florence is the history of the Medicean 
family. Cosimo died in 1464, and, in 1469, Lorenzo de' Medici 
became the ruler of Florence. It was under him that Florence 
reached the zenith of her fame in art and letters, though the 
greatest name in all Italian literature — that of Dante — belongs 
to a period nearly two centuries earlier. 

Elsewhere in Italy tyrannies of a much more oppressive 
kind had been established. Everywhere the democratic move- 
ment was beaten down, and single rulers or aristocracies held 
sway. We shall see how Naples and Sicily fell first into the 
hands of France, and then into the possession of a branch of 
the royal house of Aragon. 

A translation of the Golden Bull is given in Henderson's Documents 
of the Middle Ages; H. F. Brown's Venetian Bepublic; Armstrong's 
Lorenzo de' Medici (Heroes of tlie Nations). 



CHAPTER IV 
The Renaissance in Italy 

Dante's Divine Comedy 1300 

Chrysoloras teaches Greek in Italy , . . 1396 

First printed Bible 1455 

America Discovered . 1492 

Meattwhile a great change was passing over the thoughts, 
convictions, and feelings of men ; and this movement is usually 
known as the Renaissance. Renaissance means re- 
character of birth, and the word is usually used with reference 
the Renais- to the revived knowledge of Latin and Greek, and 
sance. ^f classical literature and ideas which is one of the 

great features of the time. But the Renaissance was, in truth, 
much more than that. It means that men were no longer 
satisfied with the ideas and forms of the Middle Ages, which had 
served weU for many centuries, but were now outgrown ; and 
that they were groping round for new light and new guidance. 



The Renaissance in Italy 235 

Many were the forces that were driving Europe away from 
medieval conceptions. The catastrophe of the Papacy and its 
degradation during the fifteenth century account for much. 
Rome no longer possessed her old influence and prestige. And 
the revival of classical learning, though it does not account for 
the Renaissance, colours and influences all of it. The Middle 
Ages were not so dark or devoid of education and culture as 
they have been sometimes described ; but for long after the 
death of Charlemagne, learning had languished, and there had 
been no originality of thought or speculation. But by the 
middle of the thirteenth century the darkness had passed, and 
the dawn was showing itself. The thirteenth century is the 
Age of the Schoolmen, of whom the chief were Roger Bacon, 
Albertus Magnus, and S. Thomas Aquinas. One aim common 
to all of them was the adaptation to the doctrines of the Church 
of the works of the Greek philosopher Aristotle, which had 
recently become known in a Latin translation. But the culture 
of the time is shown at its best and highest in the career and 
writings of the great poet Dante. Note that his work was all 
done before the Renaissance, in its narrower sense, had begun ; 
before Greek was known in Italy, while yet men accepted with- 
out much questioning the ideas and organization of the Church. 
The slightest knowledge of Dante's works will dissipate the idea 
of the blindness and darkness of Europe on the eve of the 
Renaissance. The revival of classical learning was not the cause 
of the intellectual movement in Europe ; the movement had 
already begun, and had achieved glorious results ; and it was 
because it had gone so far, because so many men were awake 
to the problems and the needs of the mind and heart of man, 
that they turned again to the classical literatures of Greece and 
Rome, which during the Middle Ages had been neglected indeed, 
but never quite forgotten. 

Thus the coming of the classical revival was a gradual and 
spontaneous process. Dante (1265-1321) showed the way. 
Petrarch (1304-1374) and Boccaccio (1313-1375) The classical 
both knew and declared the importance of Greek ; revival, 
but it was not until the very end of the century (1396) that the 
Greek tongue was taught in Italy by a Greek, Chrysoloras, from 
Constantinople. From that time onwards the study of the 



236 



Outlines of European History 



language and the literature and the philosophy of Greece be- 
came the fashion and the enthusiasm of the cultured classes in 
Italy. Florence was the first home of the new learuing, but it 
soon spread in every direction. Venice took up the work, and 
Pope Nicholas Y. (1447-1455) was one of its most eager patrons. 
The new learning produced a vast effect upon the thoughts 
and convictions of men. None have ever become acquainted 




Dante. 
A copy, somewhat restored, of a fresco by the contemporary artist Giotto. 



with the literature of ancient Greece without admiring it ; but 
to the Italians of the fifteenth century it came as a revelation. 
The influence ^^^ conceptions of art and philosophy came to 
of the revival them from this source. There is no department 
of Greek. of human knowledge which did not receive a fresh 
impetus from the new learning. The sight of this fair civiliza- 
tion, independent of and preceding Christianity, struck a blow 
at some of the claims of Catholicism ; and later the knowledofe 



The Renaissance in Italy 237 

of Greek furnished the Protestant reformers with their most 
useful weapons. Men turned away from the immediate past, 
from what was good in it as well as what was evil, and stretched 
out their hands to the poets and philosophers, and even to the 
gods of Greece and Rome. 

While men's minds, dissatisfied with the present, were turning 
to the distant past and dreaming of a brighter future, events 
were occurring which opened up new roads to the invention of 
thoughts and activities of mankind. The latter printing, 
half of the fifteenth century saw the invention of printiug. The 
first Latin Bible was printed in 1455, and the first printing press 
was set up in Italy in 1471. At first the process was slow and 
costly, and the future influence which was in store for the 
printing press was guessed by no one. Its most important im- 
mediate result was to secure the treasures, in the shape of Greek 
and Latin books, which had been unearthed from the monastic 
libraries. Had they been left in manuscript, they might have 
disappeared again as they had disappeared already ; but they 
were now circulated among the scholars of Europe in numerous 
and accurate copies. 

The last years of the fifteenth century saw also the most 
important geographical discoveries which have ever been made. 
The desire to reveal the hidden places of the earth Geo^aphical 
was no new thing, and in the fourteenth century discovery, 
the Venetian, Marco Polo, had made wonderful voyages of dis- 
covery in the continent of Asia. But these were of little 
importance compared with what was to come. For suddenly 
the world seemed to enlarge. New continents, each far 
vastift' than Europe (as Europe was reckoned in the sixteenth 
century) came within the horizon of men's thoughts and 
activities. In 1492 the Genoese Columbus, in a Spanish ship, 
saw land rise beyond the Atlantic ; and in 1497 Vasco da 
Gama sailed round the Cape of Good Hope, and revealed the 
route by the open sea to the Indies. The motive in these 
voyages was chiefly commercial. The advancing power of the 
Turks (who had taken Constantinople in 1453) made the old 
trade-routes with India and China precarious and expensive. 
It was in search of another route to the east of Asia that 
Columbus sailed across the Atlantic ; and to the end of his life 



238 Outlines of European History 

he believed that he had arrived, not at a new continent, but 
on the eastern shores of Asia. The name of the West Indies 
recall his motive and his mistake. Momentous consequences 
followed from these great discoveries. The treasures and the 
territory of the New World were eagerly coveted, and though 
at first monopolized by Spain and Portugal, were soon a matter 
of fierce dispute among the seafaring nations of Europe ; and 
to England, which at first took Uttle part in voyages of 
discovery, the greatest share of the New World was destined 
to fall. The immediate results of the discovery of the Cape 
route were even greater. The overland route for the wares of 
China and India was abandoned in favour of the safer sea 
passage. That meant a fatal commercial loss to many Medi- 
terranean seaports, but none felt the blow so keenly as Venice. 
Oriental commerce was diverted from her harbours, and with 
that her decay began. The discovery of the New World 
influenced every department of European life. It was trade 
and the international relations of states which were at first 
affected. But the thought and the imagination of men were 
also quickened. The story of the New World is entirely ex- 
cluded from the scope of this book ; but every part of the life 
of Europe during the next four centuries has been affected by it. 
Let us also note here another vast discovery which was 
shortly to be made, though it does not fall within the fifteenth 
The new century. In the middle of the sixteenth century 
astronomy. Copernicus discovered that the earth was not the 
centre of the universe ; and Kepler and Galileo, following in his 
steps, revealed the solar system in its main features as we know 
it to-day. The discovery implied a great shock to the theory of 
the universe which men had held all through the Middle Ages, 
and prepared the way for the adoption of new views on life and 
religion, " The floor of heaven, inlaid with stars, sank back 
into an infinite abyss of immeasurable space." 

From this time onward the Cambridge Modern History may be used 
for constant reference. Dyer^s History of Modern Europe is also useful 
throughout. Lord Actoii's Lectures on Modern Histoi-y will be found 
suggestive and stimulating. J. A. Symonds' Renaissance in Italy is 
the great book in English on the subject and should be referred to. 
Miss BossettVs Shadow of Dante is a useful introduction to the study 
of the poet. 



France and the Italian Wars 239 

CHAPTER V 
France and the Italian Wars 

Charles VIII. invades Italy ...... 1494 

Leag-ue of Cambrai 1508 

Battle of Marignano 1515 

Battle of Pavia 1525 

Sack of Rome 1527 

Abdication of Charles V 1556 

The chief subject that will engage our thoughts now for 
several chapters, is that religious revolution which is known as 
the Protestant Reformation. But before we go on to see its 
rise, we will examine very briefly the military and political 
history of Europe that was contemporary with this religious 
change. 

We have seen that England, France, and Spain were the 
strong states of the period. They were vigorous and united 
under their respective monarchies, while Germany wealth and 
and Italy were divided and, in consequence, weak, weakness of 
Of the two, Italy was certainly far the weaker and ^^^^y- 
the richer. Skill in commerce and industrial methods had 
made Italy rich, while her literature and her art made her famous 
above all nations of Europe. She was beautiful, rich, and 
almost defenceless : her neighbours were covetous and power- 
ful : and the natural results followed. 

Of the strong nations, France was the nearest and the 
strongest. Charles YIII. had succeeded, on the death of 
Louis XI., in 1483. The new king was of an invasion of 
adventurous and romantic temperament, and he Italy by 
desired to perform some great exploit. He had Charles Vlll. 
certain claims upon Naples, and he used these as a pretext for 
the invasion of Italy. He crossed the Alps, and marched 
through Italy in uninterrupted triumph. Milan,- Florence, 
Rome, Naples all fell into his hands almost without a struggle ; 
the Italians had nothing that they could oppose to his 
splendidly equipped army. But this, the first of many French 



240 Outlines of European History 

expeditions into Italy, was to be typical of nearly all. To 
conqner was easy ; to hold what was conquered was difficult, 
and proved in the end impossible. The subtle Italians found 
in diplomacy and intrigue weapons with which they could 
meet the force of France. The one principle which seems to 
have guided their constantly shifting policy was, that all should 
unite against the power that was for the moment the strongest. 

So, while Charles YIII. was dreaming that Italy was 
conquered and at his disposal, an alliance was made against 
FaUure of him in the north of Italy, under the guidance of 
Charles VIII. the Venetians. Charles YIII. found a retreat 
necessary, and, though he fought his way back to France, his 
conquests passed away from him almost as quickly as they had 
been made. 

It is during the course of these Italian wars thus in- 
augurated by Charles YIII. of France, that the principle of 
The principle " ^^^ balance of power " begins to emerge. The 
of balance great Powers of Europe tacitly adopted as a 
of power. principle that no one of them should gain an 
increase of territory without the others receiving compensating 
advantages. It was very far indeed from acting effectually as 
a basis of peace, but it prevented complete anarchy in the 
European state system, and was the basis of European 
diplomacy for many generations. 

In 1498 Louis XII. succeeded Charles YIII., and the 
temptation of Italy was again too strong for him. It was not 
J . vTT against Naples this time, but against Milan that 

Louis XII. f) r ^ 7 o , - _ . 

attempts the the attack was primarily directed, for Louis 
conquest of XII. could make out some sort of claim upon 
Italy. |.j^g Milanese territory. Diplomatic intrigue 

prepared the way for invasion, and, when the invasion came, 
again it seemed at first irresistible. Milan was occupied and 
annexed to France. Then Naples beckoned the invader on. 
It turned out that both France and Spain had claims on 
Naples, and if France invaded in disregard of them, she would 
certainly find Spain as her antagonist. The difficulty was 
avoided by a treaty with Spain (the Treaty of G-ranada, 1500), 
whereby the two crowned heads agreed to share the spoil of 
Naples, European history does not know any more immoral 



France and the Italian Wars 241 

agreement. The King of Naples could make no resistance to 
the alliance of France and Spain, and the territory of Naples 
was occupied without resistance. But, when the crowned 
robbers came to share the spoil, they quickly quarrelled, and 
soon war broke out between France and Spain. It is a war 
full of romance, but the result alone can be given. The 
French were, in the end, driven out of Naples, and soon 
possessed no territory in Italy except Milan. 

An incident followed, singularly characteristic of the un- 
scrupulous policy of the time. We have seen already how rich, 
prosperous, and well-governed Venice was. She The Leag-ue 
possessed extensive territories on the mainland, ofCambrai. 
and these were viewed with jealous eyes by her neighbours — 
the Empire on the north-east, the estates of the Church to the 
south, and France established in the duchy of Milan. The 
various Powers had no real grievance against Venice, but her 
wealth and her weakness were sufficient, and in 1508, France 
and the Empire, Spain, Florence, and the Papacy joined in the 
League of Oambrai for the spoliation and partition of Venice. 

Venice could make no effective resistance against the great 
forces which were put into the field against her. Her troops 
were defeated, and her general was taken prisoner : Defeat and 
the extinction of the Venetian Eepublic seemed recovery of 
close at hand. But Venice was saved by her own Venice, 
statesmanship and diplomatic skill, and by the rivalries and 
quarrels of her opponents. For, first, she made no effort to 
keep her subjects on the mainland subordinate to her against 
their will, and they soon contrasted the brutality of their 
conquerors with the milder .rule of Venice. Still more 
important was the understanding which Venice made with the 
pope, Julius II. He was one of the strongest and 
most noteworthy popes of the period, free from *' "^ ^^' 
the vices which disgraced some of the popes of the century, 
vigorous in action, far-seeing in his policy. But if we could 
follow his career closely, we should see that the spiritual 
interests of the Catholic Church were not the uppermost 
thought in his mind. He was a patron of art, a great builder, 
and, above all, an ambitious ruler of the states of the Church. 
Venice had ceded to him much of the territory which he had 

R 



243 Outlines of European History 

coveted upon the northern frontier of the papal states. His 
aim in joining the alliance against Venice was achieved, and 
now he had no desire to see France established as a strong 
power in the north of Italj. France, the strong, and not 
Venice, the weak, suddenly became the enemy of all the 
Italian states, and Julius II. organized the Holy League for 
the expulsion of the hated foreigners from the soil of Italy. 
Under the guidance of the pope, Venice, Spain, the Empire, 
Florence, and even England joined in the Holy League. These 
sudden kaleidoscopic changes of diplomacy are characteristic of 
Italy in the sixteenth century. 

The French king, Louis XII., did not wait to be attacked. 
He despatched an army into Italy, and, at first, gained victories ; 
but then the tide of battle turned, and the French 
leaeu^^^ troops were driven out of all that they had 

against conquered in Italy. History has often seen this 

France. rapid flow and ebb of the French power in the 

Italian peninsula. The enemies of France were not satisfied 
with the expulsion of the French from Italy, they determined 
to invade, and, perhaps, to partition France. Spain, England, 
and the Empire joined in this enterprise. But the alliance 
proved as unstable as other alliances of the time, and 
Louis XII. was able to break it up, and conclude a fairly 
advantageous peace for France just before his death in 1515. 

He was succeeded by his cousin, Francis I., young and 
enthusiastic, with some military talent and great ambition to 
Francis I. make for himself a name in war. Undeterred by 
wins the the failures of Charles VIII. and Louis XII., he 
battle of tiook up again the enterprise of the conquest of 

angnano. ^^^^j^ Spain, the Empire, and the Papacy, allied 
to resist him ; he could count upon Venice as an ally, but upon 
no other. Yet his first effort was brilliantly, overwhelmingly 
successful. He crossed the Alps, and at Marignano, near Milan, 
with the help of the Venetians, he utterly routed the enemy 
(1515). It was for many reasons a battle of great and long- 
enduring consequence. It fired the king's ardour for military 
enterprise, and all Europe believed that a great soldier had 
appeared. Moreover, the victory was a day of great glory for 
the French soldiers. The army of Francis I. had been a 



France and the Italian Wars 243 

genuinely national army, and ranged against them were the 
Swiss mercenaries, esteemed the best soldiers in Europe and 
almost invincible. If France could produce soldiers capable 
of overthrowing the terrible Swiss, all things seemed possible 
to her. An important treaty followed the battle. By the 
" Concordat of Bologna " Francis I. made terms with the Papacy. 
Certain money payments which France had refused of late 
were again to flow into the coffers of the Papacy, and in return 
the appointment of Church dignitaries was (with certain un- 
important reservations) given into the hands of the king. The 
pope gained money, the king gained power. Henceforth the 
King of France controlled the Church in France almost as 
completely as Henry YIII. controlled the English Church after 
the Eeformation. 

But now there came into the European arena a combatant 
who was destined to be the lifelong rival of Francis I. Charles, 
the son of Joanna of Spain and Philip, the son of the Emperor 
Maximilian, had come to the throne of Spain in 1516 ; and as 
King of Spain he was one of the most important powers in 
Europe ; for he had behind him the warlike population of 
Spain, the commerce and the industry of the Low Countries 
(the ISTetherlands), and the vast prestige which flowed from 
bis titular possession of undefined tracts in the New World. 
He was loyally obeyed and efficiently served, and was second 
to no Power in Europe, not even to Henry YIII. of England 
or Francis I. of France. But in 1519 a vaster prize came 
within his reach. The Emperor Maximilian died. The Empire 
was in theory elective. In practice it had been for some 
generations hereditary, and unless something extraordinary 
occurred, Charles of Spain would become emperor, and 
would add to his already vast dominions the hereditary pos- 
sessions of the house of Hapsburg, and the glorious title of 
Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. 

Francis I. determined to dispute the election. His efforts 
were vain, Charles of Spain became the Emperor Charles Y., 
and ruled over a greater expanse of territory than xhe disputed 
any European ruler had ever called his. But these imperial 
vast territories and vague pretensions were no real ^^^ction. 
addition to the power of Charles Y. He was stronger as 



244 



Outlines of European History 



Charles of Spain than as the Emperor Charles V. ; and his election 
had brought upon him the unquenchable jealousy of Francis I. 
We will follow the rivalry of these great potentates to the 
end : but we must note here that soon after the date we have 
Rivalry of reached, the Protestant Reformation began in 
Charles V. Germany, and henceforward the stmggle between 
and Francis I. Charles and Francis is curiously blended with the 
bitter strife of Catholicism and Protestantism. The mixture 
of religious motives with political and dynastic ambition is 

w4iat gives the middle of the 
sixteenth century its most 
marked characteristics. The 
strands are constantly and 
closely intertwined ; but here 
for the sake of clearness we 
must separate them. 

War between Francis and 
Charles came soon after the 
The battle imperial election ; 
ofPavia. a^d Charles 
managed to win over Henry 
YIII. of England to his side. 
Worse still for Francis, he 
was betrayed in the crisis of 
the war by the Duke of Bour- 
bon, the greatest of the French 
nobles ; and his treason threw 
open the south-eastern ap- 
proach into the heart of France. 
But the attack was beaten off, and in 1525, Francis I., still 
fall of martial ambition, led a French army into Italy, hoping 
to repeat the triumphs which had made his name famous just 
ten years before. He took Milan, and he laid siege to Pavia ; 
but then the Duke of Bourbon came up with a great army 
which had been raised in Germany. A furious battle followed, 
in which Francis I. showed no lack of personal courage, but 
he was utterly defeated and taken prisoner. Since the battle 
of Agincourt (one hundred and ten years before), no such 
disaster had fallen upon France. 




Charles V. 

King of Spain, 1516; emperor, 1519; abdi- 
cated, 1556 ; died, 1558. 



France and the Italian Wars 



24S 



Yet the disaster did not tarn out so completely ruinous as 
had been expected. Francis I. was taken to Madrid and kept 
a prisoner there until he consented to sign a treaty which, if 
carried out, would have ruined France ; but he repudiated the 
treaty as soon as he was free, declaring that it had been extorted 
by violence, and the war went on. The principle of balance 




The Capture of Francis I. at the Battle of Pavia. 

[From Joh. Ludw. Gottfried's " Eistorische Chronika.") 

King Francis stands over his fallen horse and still continues to fight. He subsequently surrendered 
to Lannoy, Viceroy of Naples. 

of power turned now against Charles. He seemed so com- 
pletely in the ascendant, that the other powers of Europe joined 
against him. France, Venice, Florence, England, were ranged 
against Charles, under the nominal presidency of the pope, in 
what is sometimes known as the Second Holy League. 

The pope, Clement YIL, paid quickly and dearly for the 
part he had played against Spain. The imperial army after 
the victory of Pavia remained in Italy, but it was unpaid, for 



246 Outlines of European History 

victory had brought little money into Charles's coffers. In a 
half mutinous condition, it resolved to pay itself by the plunder 
The sack of of. some rich city. Florence at first was aimed at, 
Rome, 1527. but then it turned upon Rome ; and the city, 
almost without a garrison, fell with hardly a struggle into the 
hands of the motley army of Charles. Rome never suffered so 
cruelly from any of the many barbarian occupations which 
it had suffered during the early Middle Ages. The city was 
systematically plundered. The pope became a prisoner in the 
power of Charles, and was thus m.ade a pliant instrument of 
his policy. 

The sack of Rome caused a great sensation in Europe and 
had a great influence on the course of affairs. It is the last 
really important incident in the contest of France and Spain 
for Italy. The Reformation in Germany soon began to be the 
great question with which Charles Y. had to deal, and his 
attention was in consequence chiefly directed to Germany 
rather than Italy. But it will be best to follow the rivalry 
of the two great Powers until it reaches at last a long truce 
in 1559. 

France was exhausted and the military ambition of Francis 
I. was sated. While he lived there was never again much energy 
Renewal of thrown into the war with the Empire. In 1529 
the war. he accepted a peace (the Peace of Cambrai) ; but 

new causes of quarrel soon arose, and rival claims in Italy 
were chiefly accountable for the renewal of the war. The 
most Christian King of France (for such was the oflBcial title 
which all Kings of France bore) allied himself with the Pro- 
testants of Germany and the Sultan of Turkey, the greatest of 
all " heretics," though France was at the same time persecuting 
Protestant heretics at home. There was no great incident, 
however, in the war ; and, from weariness, both sides accepted 
the Truce of Nice in 1538. It was to have lasted at least ten 
years, but in four years a dispute as to the Duchy of Milan 
again led to a war. There was fighting of an indecisive kind. 
We need not follow it. The only point we need seize is that 
the war lacks altogether the fierce energy and the decisive events 
of its earlier stages, and that this was due partly to the age of 
the two chief combatants, but mainly to the fact that Germany 



France and the Italian Wars 247 

was convulsed by the Reformation movement, and Charles had 
to give most of his attention there. 

Francis I. died in 1547, and was succeeded by his son 
Henry II. The young king sought to profit by the German 
entanglements of his older rival and renewed the Henry II. 
war. The French occupied Metz (the great frontier King of 
fortress in Lorraine) and Charles sent his armies France. 
against it. Success seemed certain, but the town was stub- 
bornly defended, and the emperor's forces were beaten off. 
This defeat contributed to form in Charles's mind a resolve 
to abdicate his vast powers. Since the Roman Emperor 
Diocletian there had been no such notable case of any ruler 
willingly withdrawing himself from the burden and the glory 
of rule. Failing health, political and military disappointments, 
and a desire to see and perhaps to supervise his son's first 
efforts in statesmanship — all had a share in inducing him to 
take the step. He abdicated his imperial title in 1556, and 
threw off the rest of his powers piecemeal, retired to a 
monastery and lived there until his death in 1558. He was 
succeeded in the Empire by his brother Ferdinand, but his son 
Philip II. inherited the Spanish crown and all that belonged 
to it in Spain, in the Netherlands, and in the New World. 

Philip II. inherited his father's contest with France and 
carried it on for a few years. But as religious questions 
became more and more important, this contest Accession of 
between the two great Catholic powers was un- Philip ii. of 
reasonable. Both France and Spain gained Spain. 
victories ; and then in 1559 there came the Peace of Cateau 
Cambresis which marks a really important stage in European 
development. The French failure in Italy stood confessed, 
for Spain retained in her hands both Milan and Naples. 
France gained on her north-eastern frontier the great 
fortresses of Metz, Ton], and Yerdun ( " The Three Bishoprics " 
as they were usually called). A close alliance was to take the 
place of the contest that had lasted for half a century ; and 
the symbol of this alliance was to be the marriage of Philip 
(who had just been left free by the death of his wife Queen 
Mary of England) with Elizabeth the French princess. 

The long war had important results beyond the changes 



^4^ Outlines of European History 

in frontier and the transference of territory. The destinies 
of Italy were decided during its course ; but it is most 
important to notice that it contributed much to the success 
of the Reformation movement in Germany to which we must 
now turn. 

MachiavelWs Prince might be read here. The French Monarchy 
(1483-1789), by ^. J. Grant; Armstrong's Charles V.; Eanke's History 
of the Po^es. 



CHAPTER VI 
The Reformation in Germany- 
Luther denounces Indulgences . , . . . 1517 

Diet of Worms . . . 1521 

Battle of Miihlberg . 1547 

Peace of Augsburg 1555 

During- the latter half of the fifteenth century the Papacy 
had been little troubled by any dangers, whether political or 
doctrinal. The popes had become Italian princes ; they 
aimed no longer at the high enterprises of Gregory VII. or 
Innocent HI. ; it might seem that the time of great religious 
enthusiasms had passed away. Even the first rumblings of 
the storm in G-ermany did not rouse the Papacy from its 
lethargy and its secular cares. 

Luther came very slowly to hold those opinions whose 
declaration was destined to introduce a new epoch in European 
history. He was at first a devout friar ; he studied 
" ^^' intensely the Bible in the Vulgate Latin transla- 

tion and the works of S. Augustine, which have so often 
led men away from the strict lines of Catholic orthodoxy. He 
had visited Rome in 1510, and had seen how unworthy was 
the life of the papal city ; but it was not until 1517 that he 
broke out in an attack upon any part of the Catholic organiza- 
tion. In that year Tetzel visited Wittenberg, at the univer- 
sity of which town Luther was Professor of Theology, and his 



The Reformation in Germany 



249 



mission was to sell " indulgences " for the benefit of the 
building fund of St. Peter's at Rome. The theory of in- 
dulgences is an intricate one, but to Luther they seemed a 
shameful means of making money out of the deluded people, 
and a declaration that God's forgiveness could be bought for 
money. His spirit burnt within him, until he denounced 
Tetzel and his evil traffic. He nailed to the door of Wittenberg 
Cathedral ninety-five theses or contentions, which he was 
anxious to maintain against the doctrine of indulgences. 

But Luther had no idea that he 
was the founder of a religious move- 
ment which would intro- Luther in 
duce the greatest of all conflict with 
schisms into Catholic Ro"^^- 
Christendom. His nature was con- 
servative and loyal. If the Papacy 
had treated him with tenderness, a re- 
concihation was by no means out of 
the question. The Papacy misunder- 
stood the situation, and demanded 
abject submission. Luther advanced 
into a more direct conflict with the 
traditions of the Catholic Church, 
until in 1520 a bull of excommuni- 
cation was launched against him. But 
this weapon no longer produced the 
effect which it had done three hundred years before. Luther 
burnt the bull, and was henceforward in direct conflict with 
Rome and its organization and ideas. He was summoned 
next year to a Diet at "Worms ; but he could not be induced to 
recant. He had thrown down the gauntlet in a struggle far 
greater than he knew. 

For Germany was prepared to welcome and support the 
new movement, not indeed universally, but with sufficient 
energy to give it force and permanence. If we Germany 
would understand why Luther triumphed, while and the 
Wickliffe and Huss had failed, we must remember Reformation, 
the changed conditions of the land and of the time. No general 
European crusade against the new opinions was possible. The 




Martin Luther. 

Born, 14 83 ; denonnces Tetzel, 
1517 ; excommunicated, 
1520 ; died, 1546. 



250 Outlines of European History 

two great Catholic powers of France and the Empire were 
engaged in a bitter war, and were quite unable to sink their 
differences in order to crush Lutheranism. In Germany, too, 
though there was not much sign of doctrinal protest against 
the Papacy before Luther's time, there was widespread irrita- 
tion with the papal exactions, from which Germany suffered 
more than any other country in Europe. The Protestant move- 
ment, then, in Germany, as elsewhere, joined itself to a striv- 
ing after national independence. Consider, too, what was the 
political condition of Germany ; how, as a result of the long 
contest between the Empire and the Papacy, she was utterly 
without real political unity or a really efficient government 
of any kind. Had Germany been a state in the sense in 
which France or Spain or England was a state, the central 
government would, in the end, have crushed a religious 
movement which it disUked. But, as we have seen, the 
emperor had little real authority in Germany. The real 
power was with the subordinate states, and many of them, for 
different reasons, joined themselves heartily to the Lutheran 
movement. Two hundred and fifty years earlier the Papacy 
had succeeded in breaking up the organization of the Empire, 
and that victory now contributed not a little to the success of 
the most dangerous movement that had ever threatened the 
papal power. 

The political disunion of Germany makes it peculiarly diffi- 
cult to trace the history of the Lutheran movement, and a few 
The peasants' jears after it had begun it was complicated by a 
rising: in social movement of a very important kind. The 

Germany. peasants of Germany were still in a condition of 
serfdom, bound to the land, and obliged to render many servile 
duties to their masters. Their actual condition varied very 
widely. Many were, so far as their material circumstances 
were concerned, fairly well off. But revolutions usually come 
when the condition of the people is improving, and the peasants 
were, moreover, stirred by the preaching of the Lutheran move- 
ment, as the English peasants, in the time of Wat Tyler, were 
by the preaching of Wickliffe. In 1524 they broke out into a 
fierce revolt, demanding absolute freedom and anticipating a 
speedy millennium. They found resistance even fiercer than 



The Reformation in Germany 251 

their rising. The nobles and the empire regarded them with 
inevitable dislike ; but their leaders had hoped for the sympathy 
of Luther. He feared, however, that the social movement 
would prejudice his own religious movement ; and in the end, 
he attacked the peasants with cruel invective. The peasants' 
rising was crashed with great cruelty, and serfdom was re- 
established in Germany. Lutheranism could not henceforth 
count on the support of the peasants, and for that reason partly 
it drew closer to the princes and rulers of Germany. 

For some years the Lutheran movement, favoured by the 
war of Charles with Francis, gained ground rapidly, but in 
1530, Charles Y. was at last free to act. He had made a 
temporary peace with Francis I. ; his power seemed without 
rival in Europe ; and he declared that the Lutheran sect 
must be extirpated. The supporters of Lutheranism had a 
few years before begun to use the name of Protestants, because 
they had protested against an earlier order of the emperor's. 
Now, against this threatening danger, the Pro- The Schmal- 
testant states joined themselves into the famous kaidic 
Schmalkaldic League for mutual support against Leag-ue. 
imperial coercion. Had not the war with Francis been renewed, 
Charles would have struck an earlier blow against the Protest- 
ants ; but in 1547 peace with France and the death of Francis 
I. gave him his opportunity. He entered Germany in 1547 
with a large army, and at Miihlberg defeated the army of the 
Schmalkaldic League, under Prince John Frederick of Saxony. 
Protestant Germany seemed in the emperor's power. Charles Y. 
was a sincere Catholic, but was too well acquainted with politics 
to be a fanatic, and he desired to make some peaceful religious 
settlement of Germany. A great Council of the Church had 
just been summoned, and it was hoped it would heal the 
new schism, as the Council of Constance had healed an earlier 
one. Meanwhile an arrangement should be made which all 
Germany should accept until the council had met and com- 
pleted its deliberations. This settlement, called " the Interim," 
affirmed the unity of the Church under the headship of the 
pope, and the guardianship of the Holy Spirit, but admitted 
certain doctrines, such as " Justification by Faith," which were 
characteristic of Protestantism, while other doubtful points, 



252 Outlines of European History 

such as the marriage of the clergy, were to be left to the 
decisions of the great council. 

The outlook seemed very favourable to Catholicism. The 
Protestants seemed beaten down, and the emperor had gained 
. a great victory. But dangerous stuff was ferment- 
torious and ^"o under the surface. Germany had not forgotten 
again de- the teaching of Luther, nor its national aspira- 
feated in tions ; nor did the princes and states of Germany 

ermany. (j^siie to be completely subordinated to the Empire. 
There were, too, individual grievances against Charles, as well 
as public and national ones. His own brother, Ferdinand, was 
quarrelling with him : and a greater and unexpected danger 
was the jealous ambition of Maurice of Saxony. Maurice was 
the most important person in Germany. He had contributed 
very largely to the victory of Miihlberg, and showed ability, 
both political and military, of a very high order. He was dis- 
contented with the results of the victory he had won ; he had 
hoped for the chief position in Germany, and he had not got 
it. So he began to intrigue on all sides ; with Henry 11. 
King of France, with Ferdinand, the brother of Charles Y., 
with the Protestant princes of Germany. Charles Y. was an 
astute statesman, but he was taken by surprise by his subtle 
antagonist. In 1552 Maurice rose against Charles ; he seized 
Augsburg, and very nearly captured the emperor himself at 
Innsbruck. With great difficulty the emperor managed to 
escape into Italy. Maurice of Saxony was now, for a time, one 
of the greatest figures in Europe. But he died in 1553, before 
his schemes had clearly defined themselves. 

Had Charles Y. possessed the energy and elasticity of his 
youth he might now have made a determined effort to retrieve 
The Peace of his position. But he was feeling old, and fortune, 
Augsburg. as he said, forsook old men. He made a half- 
hearted attempt to coerce Germany, and then, in 1555, called 
a Diet at Augsburg, and accepted the Peace of Augsburg. This 
peace brings to an end the first phase of the Reformation 
movement in Germany, and it contains the seeds out of which 
later troubles sprang. Its conditions must therefore be ex- 
amined. 

First, in matters of religion, each state of the Empire was 



The Reformation in Germany 253 

to decide for itself. " Cujus regio ejus religio " was the maxim 
adopted ; that is, the government of each state should decide 
the faith of that state. There were thus to be 
Catholic and Protestant states ; but no religious ^ ^^"^^" 
toleration inside each state. Further, Lutheranism was the 
only form of Protestantism which was recognized. Calvinism 
had already become a serious competitor for the allegiance of 
Protestants, but its existence was ignored by the Peace of 
Augsburg. 

Next, there was the question of property. Great ecclesi- 
astical properties had been secularized, that is, seized by secular 
powers daring the late trouble. Were these to be restored to 
the Church to which they had originally belonged or not ? It 
was decided that a line should be drawn at the year 1552. All 
Church property secularized before that date should remain in 
lay hands, but the rest should be restored to the Church. 

So Germany had rest for a time. Bat neither on the 
religious nor on the political side, could the Peace of Augsburg 
bs regarded as final. There were still religious enthusiasms 
and passions, political ambitions and antipathies unsatisfied. 
Thus the troubles that sprung from the Eeformation were by 
no means over for Germany. Germany ceases for a time to be 
the great arena of the religious struggle ; but half a century 
later it broke out there in the most terrible form that Europe 
has known. 

Kostlin's Luther; Haiisser's Age of the Reformation; Henderson's 
Tlistory of Germany. The Eoman Catholic view of the Eeformation 
will be found in Janssen's History of the German People at tlie Close of 
tlie Middle Ajes. 



254 Outlines of European History 



CHAPTER VII 

Religious Movements in Europe in the Latter 
Half of the Sixteenth Century 

Calvin goes to Geneva 1536 

The Jesuit Order founded 1540 

End of the Council of Trent 1563 

The second half of the sixteenth century was profoundly 
influenced by the religious parties of the time. The wars and 
the politics of the age do not indeed spring solely from 
religious controversies ; but they are influenced by them at 
every turn. We must, therefore, cast a glance at the chief 
religious groups, at the beliefs they held, the policies they 
followed, and the methods they employed. We will look first 
at the Protestant side. 

We have already seen something of the rise and spread of 
Lutheranism. Of all the forms of Protestantism which were 
Character- known on the continent of Europe (omitting that 
istics of of the reformed English Church as it was organized 

Lutheranism. -^y Henry YIII. and Queen Elizabeth), Luther- 
anism was the most conservative. Luther looked with sympathy 
upon the traditions of Christendom, and it was only the pro- 
gress of the struggle that had induced him to take up a position 
so decidedly antagonistic to all that belonged to Eome. On 
the crucial question of the nature of the Eucharist, he rejected 
the Eoman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, but held 
by what he called consubstantiation. He denied that the 
bread and wine of the communion were in very fact the body 
and blood of Christ, but he rejected also the view that the 
communion was a simply commemorative ceremony. Along- 
side of the bread and wine he believed that the Divine sub- 
stance existed " as fire enters into the substance of iron " ; 
and this he called consubstantiation. The extremer Protest- 
ants soon came to reject this doctrine, almost as decisively as 
transubstantiation. Another characteristic feature of Luther- 
anism is its rehance on the power of the State. Luther himself 



Calvinism 



255 



was full of a sense of subordination to the established powers, 
and the Lutheran Churches in Germany were put under State 
protection and State control. Soon after Luther's death, 
Lutheranism was accused of lifelessness ; and energy and 
initiative had passed over to its rivals in the Protestant camp. 

The first of these rivals in point of time was the system 
which was established under Zwingli's guidance . 

in the Swiss Confederation. But though the Zwing- ^^"^ ^* 
lian movement is interesting, its direct influence was con- 
fined to Switzerland, and 
thus it hardly claims 
notice here. Zwinglianism 
was for the most part a 
franker, more indepen- 
dent, more democratic 
form of Lutheranism. 

Far greater is the im- 
portance of Calvinism, 
which after Calvinand 
the middle of his influence, 
the century becomes 
clearly the guiding and 
aggressive force on the 
Protestant side. Calvin 
was a Frenchman, born in 
Picardy in the north of 
France, and destined at 
first by his parents for a 
lucrative post in the 
service of the Catholic 

Church. But he turned from a clerical to a legal career, and 
while he was pursuing his legal studies at Orleans he embraced 
Protestant opinions. Then as the government of France was 
pressing heavily on Protestants, he left the country, and after 
some time spent among the Protestant communities on the 
banks of the Ehine, he came and settled at Geneva ; and, not 
without a struggle, became the religious dictator of that city. 

The system that he founded became for a century the 
strongest influence on the Protestantism of Europe. As the 




John Calvin. 
Born, 1509 ; settled in Geneva, 1536 ; died, 1564. 



256 Outlines of European History 

energy of Lutheranism declined, Calvinism took its place as the 
representative of Protestant belief in its strongest and most 
definite form. Calvin himself is a great contrast to Luther. 
Luther was passionate, emotional, and deficient in logical 
power. With Calvin all was will and logic ; the human 
feelings counted for little in his life and in his religious 
system. In 1536, before he came to Geneva, he had written 
the "Institutes of the Christian Eeligioii," and the work, 
afterwards much expanded, became the foundation of Calvinist 
doctrine and discipline. 

By what characteristics was Calvinism distinguished from 
Lutheranism ? By the logical completeness of its doctrine, in 
Character- the first place. It started from much the same point 
istics of as Luther had done ; but the system was more 

Calvinism. thorough-going and there was less desire to con- 
ciliate any who still looked at Catholicism with affection. 
Luther's consubstantiation was rejected equally with Catholic 
transubtantiation. The communion became a commemorative 
ceremony by means of which special grace was bestowed. Pre- 
destination, or the doctrine of necessity, was the very basis of 
Calvin's whole system. This was no new doctrine ; it was as 
old as Christianity itself ; but it received at Calvin's hands its 
Calvin's completest and hardest definition. Next, Calvin's 

system of system was distinguished by a special system of 
Church Church government. The Church was to be inde- 

government. ^^^^qj^^ ^f the State, not clinging to it for protec- 
tion, as was the case with Lutheranism in Germany. The 
affairs of each Church were to be ruled, not by bishops, but by 
a body consisting of pastors and laymen, elected by the congre- 
gation itself. The democratic element thus entered into 
Church government ; and from the Church passed into the 
State. Wherever in the sixteenth century Calvinism was strong, 
it was associated with a movement for political liberty ; this 
was the case in England, Scotland, Holland, and France, as 
well as in Switzerland. Lastly, Calvinism insisted on the need 
of a strict moral discipline. Protestantism had sometimes 
been accused of loosening the sense of moral obligation ; but 
Calvinism erected and enforced a system of rigid morality and 
manners. The dress, the table, the private habits, as well as 



Humanism in the Sixteenth Century 257 

the morals, of the people of Geneva were placed under strict 
supervision ; and, if a gloomy life and ultimately some 
hypocrisy was the result of this, it acted at first as a most 
stimulating discipline, whereby the strongest fighters on the 
Protestant side were prepared for action. 

While we are speaking of the different currents of belief which 
moved in sixteenth-century Europe, it will be well also to note 
that there was an intellectual movement, small but important, 
which cannot properly be classed with either of the religious 
camps. There were a number of 
men in Europe, thinkers and 
writers, who^ were at ^he Human- 
variance with the istsofthe 
views of Oatholi- sixteenth 
cism, and yet were c^"*"^- 
unable to accept Protestantism 
in any of its forms. These men, 
who are often called Humanists, 
are represented by such men 
as Erasmus, the great Dutch 
scholar, and Rabelais and Mon- 
taigne in Prance. Their aim 
was not theological reform so 
much . as learning, enlighten- 
ment, and the service of human- Erasmus. 

ity at large. Their following Born, 1467; visited England, 1497; 

was not large ; but they had a istefdled.^Sse^''" Testament, 

great influence on the future. 

If we turn to the Catholic camp we find there also impor- 
tant changes. The Papacy at first had looked on at the Refor- 
mation movement with little alarm. But when The Counter- 
England, Scotland, Holland, and Germany had Reformation, 
fallen away, when Protestantism was gaining ground rapidly in 
France, and there was danger of "Venice even falling away from 
the Roman allegiance, then the Church was awakened from its 
torpor, and it began to organize its forces to resist this danger 
which had grown so surprisingly. This whole movement of 
reorganization is what is known as the Catholic reaction or 
the counter-Reformation. 




258 Outlines of European History 

The first great instrument of this new movement was the 
Jesuit order, or the Company of Jesus, as it was officially 
styled. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the 
Jesuits, was a Spanish nobleman who had been 
incapacitated by a wound from further military service (1521). 
He dreamed then of transferring his military ardour from 
temporal to spiritual warfare. He meditated long ; he studied, 
at the University of Paris and elsewhere ; he turned over 
various plans in his mind. But the upshot was that he 
proposed to found a new religious order, to be known as the 
Company of Jesus ; and in 1540 his proposal received the 
sanction of Pope Paul III. 

The Church had often before had recourse to the foun- 
dation of a new order in moments of crisis and danger. We 
Objects and ^^^^ seen how great a service the Cluniac and 
organization Cistercian orders had rendered to the Church, 
of the Jesuits, j^q^ effectively the Franciscans and Dominicans 
had laboured for her. It was natural, therefore, that, in face 
of the great Protestant danger, a new order should rise up 
to defend the Church. To combat Protestantism was the 
especial mission of the "Company of Jesus." The Jesuits 
had some resemblance to the Dominicans, and yet there was 
great originality in their organization and their methods. 
They existed for action, not for contemplation. They wore no 
special dress ; they were to mix with the world in various 
ways ; but always they were to have in view the defence and 
propagation of the Church. Like the members of other 
orders, they took the vows of obedience and of separation 
from earthly ties ; but, unlike earlier orders, they discouraged 
the practice of excessive asceticism. A special feature of 
their work was their attention to education and learning. 
The New Learning had hitherto been chiefly used by the 
opponents of the Church. But the Jesuits saw that it could 
equally well be used in its defence ; and soon the schools and 
universities of all Catholic countries were mastered by Jesuit 
influence. But no analysis of their organization and their 
aims is sufficient to account for their success. They were 
inspired, at least during the first generations of the order's 
existence, with a fiery and self-sacrificing zeal, which was 



The Council of Trent 259 

at least the equal of that which Lutherans and Calvin ists 
displayed on the other side. No body of men contributed so 
much to the recovery of Catholicism as the members of the 
Society 0^ Jesus. 

The work of the Council of Trent was another great force 
that worked for a revival of Catholicism. The Emperor 
Charles Y. had from the first desired that the The Council 
questions at issue between Catholicism and Pro- of Trent, 
testantism should be submitted to a Council of the whole 
Christian world ; and at last the Papacy had summoned a 
Council to meet ab Trent (a town within the German Empire, 
though on the southern slopes of the Alps, and geographically 
in Italy). The sessions of the Council were chiefly attended 
by Italian clergy ; they were often interrupted by war and 
plague ; but at last, in 1563, they brought their sessions 
and their work to an end. The modern Roman Catholic 
Church is largely the result of their deliberations. 

What is the general result of the conclusions to which they 
came ? The Papacy gained a great victory. If the Council 
of Constance had deposed the papal monarchy in Results of 
favour of an episcopal aristocracy, the Council of its work. 
Trent restored the monarchical control of the Papacy. The 
authority of the pope was declared superior to that of 
councils. Further, Charles V.'s hopes of a reconciliation 
with Protestantism were utterly disappointed. The exclusive 
authority of the Scriptures and the doctrine of " justification 
by faith " were both rejected, to the regret of some prominent 
Churchmen who took part in the debates. The celibacy of 
the clergy was insisted on ; the Protestant demand that the 
laity as well as the clergy should partake of both bread and 
wine in the Eucharist was rejected. Further, a series of 
measures was adopted for the reform of the morals of the 
Church, the strengthening of discipline, and the removal 
of abuses. So the Church came from the Council of Trent 
purified, strengthened by a better organization, but more rigid 
and exclusive in doctrine than before, and destined never 
again to be the Church of more than a section of Western 
Christendom. 

To this period also belongs a further development in the 



26o Outlines of European History 

tribunal of the Inquisition. The Church of the Middle Ages 
had had an organization for detecting and punishing heresy, 
The inqui- and no theologian had ever questioned the duty of 
sition. the Church to punish it. Late in the fifteenth 

century (1483) a special form of inquisition had been adopted 
by Spain for the persecution of Moors and Jews. Now, in 1542, 
the supreme tribunal of the Inquisition was organized by the 
pope for dealing with the Protestant heresy ; but it could only 
be introduced into any state by permission of the rulers of 
that state, and it was never admitted into some Catholic states, 
as, for instance, France. 

Its procedure and its penalties were much like those of 
some contemporary secular tribunals. It arrested on suspicion ; 
Procedure ^^ ^^^^ torture to force confession ; it did not 
and influence confront the accused with his accusers ; it allowed 
of the In- no appeal except to the pope. When the accused 
quisition. ^^^g found guilty, he was handed over to the 

State for punishment. 

The Inquisition worked with terrible severity wherever it 
was permitted to assume authority. Its victims were numbered 
by thousands. But it was of no real service to the cause of 
the Church. Rather it exasperated Protestant hostility ; gave 
its opponents the courage of despair, and did more than any- 
thing else to make conciliation between the opposing camps 
impossible. 

Bankers History of the Popes (see also Macaulay's paradoxical essay 
on the book) ; Johnson's Europe in the Sixteenth Century ; Dyer's Life 
of Calvin ; Froude's Lectures on the Council of Trent. 



The Rise of the United Netherlands 261 

CHAPTER VIII 
The Rise of the United Netherlands 

Alva arrives in the Netherlands 1567 

The "Water- Beggars" seize Brill . . . 1572 

Union of Utrecht 1579 

Assassination of William the Silent . . . 1584 

Truce between the United Netherlands and) ^ . 

Spain } ^609 

The era of the Reformation brought a political transforma- 
tion into most European countries. Germany, France, Spain, 
England — all passed through a convulsion that left them with 
changed forces, their alliances altered, their aims and policy 
profoundly modified. And during this same period a new 
state emerges, small but strong, and destined for the next two 
hundred years to be one of the most progressive and influential 
states of Europe. This new state is properly called "the 
United Netherlands," though ifc is sometimes loosely spoken of 
as the Dutch Republic, and even (though very incorrectly) 
as Holland. 

We have seen how the Seventeen Provinces of the Nether- 
lands had come into the possession of the Spanish crown by 
the marriage of Mary of Burgundy with the The Nether- 
Emperor Maximilian, who was the grandfather of lands, 
the Emperor Charles Y., and thus the great-grandfather of 
Philip II. of Spain. The seventeen states had each a separate 
constitution, and they varied considerably in social and political 
character. The difference between the seven northern and the 
ten southern states ultimately had a great influence on their 
history. The northern states were more democratic in character, 
active in commerce and industry, and had adopted Protestantism 
in its Calvinist form ; while the southern states were of an 
aristocratic type, and strongly Catholic. 

The Netherlands, as a whole, had been of the utmost service 
to Spain. Despite occasional friction, they were generally 
loyal, and their thriving industry and commerce had made 



262 Outlines of European History 

them a more profitable source of income to Spain than the 
mines of Peru and Mexico. The inhabitants were proud and 
independent in character, and antipathetic in some respects to 
Spain ; but under Charles Y. the connection had been easily 
maintained, and on the accession of Philip II. they were his 
most valuable possession. 

PhiHp II. possessed none of the tact of his father. He 
was a thorough-going Spaniard in all his ways and ideas, and 
Policy of liis absolute and uncompromising nature soon 
Philip II. brought Spain into a conflict with the Netherlands 
which lasted longer than his own life. The general aim of 
Philip — an aim which seemed to him dictated by duty — was to 
establish absolutism, both political and religious, through all 
his dominions, to reassert everywhere the Roman Catholic 
Church against Protestant dissidence, and to destroy, through- 
out all lands which owned his sway, the principle of liberty and 
self-government. 

It was his religious policy which first brought him into 
trouble with the Netherlands ; but the religious question there, 
as everywhere else, was now closely connected with political 
aspirations. The Netherlands were in a dangerous condition 
of unrest. It is probable that tact and compromise could 
have regained the recalcitrant states to loyalty and sub- 
mission ; but PhiUp determined on the most forcible measures 
of repression. A great Spanish general, the Dake of Alva, 
with one of the best-equipped armies that Europe had ever 
seen, was sent to enforce the will of the king in the seventeen 
states (1567). Both the general and his royal master were 
confident that a short campaign and a small expense would 
reduce this land of merchants and shopkeepers. 

For some time no effective resistance was offered. The 
Netherlanders were beaten wherever they ventured to fight. 
Alva and the Alva established a new Court, "the Council of 
Netherlands. Troubles " (which was called by its enemies " the 
Council of Blood "), to try all cases of treason against Spain. 
Its summary methods and cruel punishments spread a reign 
of terror throughout the land. By 1569 all opposition to the 
Spanish r'cgme seemed at an end. But then Alva proceeded 
to impose taxes so heavy and so unwisely arranged, that if they 



The Rise of the United Netherlands 263 

had been submitted to, they seemed likely to kill the commerce 
which was the source of all the wealth of the land. The new 
taxes raised a more dangerous opposition than the Council of 
Blood. 

A large number of the inhabitants had been driven into 
flight by Alva's repressive measures ; many of them had 
taken to a life of piracy, and were called in xhe Water- 
derision "the Water-Beggars." In 1572 a Beggars, 
squadron of their vessels appeared off the mouths of the Rhine 
and Scheldt, and succeeded in capturing the important fortresses 
of Brill, Flushiug, and Enkhuisen. It seemed as though it 
were merely a surprise which Alva would soon be able to get 
the better of. But the country was seething with discontent, 
and this rebellion was destined to destroy the prestige and 
power of Spain in a war that lasted nearly forty years. The 
rebels invited William of Orange — famed for all wiiiiam the 
time as " William the Silent " — to take command Silent, 
of their forces. He had already fought against Alva without 
success, and had fled into Germany. But now he threw 
himself again into the contest, and his courage and tenacity 
of purpose, his diplomatic skill, his unselfishness and warm 
humanity, make him the one great heroic figure in the political 
history of the sixteenth century. 

Success seemed at first impossible, for a handful of untrained 
soldiers had to oppose the whole might of the greatest military 
monarchy of the age. William's genius and the Nature of 
tenacious courage of the Dutch could not by them- the struggle 
selves have achieved success ; bub the canals and ^^^^ Spain, 
the proximity of the sea made the country easily defensible, for 
again and again the dykes were cut and the sea was allowed to 
flood the country in order to drive out the Spaniards. Spain, 
too, was not so strong as she seemed. Her soldiers were 
unsurpassed in Europe, and remained generally victorious until 
the end of the war ; but her finances were exhausted and her 
troops in consequence often unpaid. Spain, too, had serious 
occupations in every part of Europe, and before the end of the 
Dutch struggle was at war with both France and England. 
Thus it was that in the end the heroic endurance of the Dutch, 
inspired and strengthened by their grim and intense Calvinism, 



264 



Outlines of European History 



succeeded in tearing a portion of the Netherlands from Spain, 
and established it as an independent state. 




William the Silent. 

Born, 1533 ; flees from Netherlands, 1561; negotiated Union of Utrecht, 1579; 
assassinated, 1584:. 



The war was largely one of sieges, for it was only behind 
^\'alls that the Dutch could struggle with any chance of success 
against Spain. Their first important success was in 1574, when 



The Rise of the United Netherlands 265 

Ley den, after a heroic defence, was saved by the cutting of 
the dykes and the letting in of the ocean. William the Silent 
showed great skill in directing the military course of 
operations, but his greatest gifts were those of the struggle, 
ar statesman and diplomatist. In 1576 came his greatest 
triumph. He induced the southern states to join hands with 
the northern, and by the "Pacification of Ghent" to join 
together for the expulsion of the Spaniard and the establish- 
ment of some form of self-government. If that agreement 
had been kept the struggle would have been shorter, and the 
success of the insurgents greater than it was. But there was 
real difference of feeling and interest between the northern 
and southern states ; and these differences were skilfully 
worked on by Alexander of Parma, the great Spanish general, 
who commanded in the Netherlands. In 1579, William the 
Silent had to recognize that the union of all the states was 
an impossible dream, and there was formed instead the 
" Union of Utrecht," whereby the seven northern Protestant 
states bound themselves together to prosecute the war, and at 
the same time accept a common form of government. This 
government has a great interest, for it was the first federal 
government of modern history. Each of the seven states was 
to manage its own domestic affairs, but to submit its foreign 
and military policy to a common government. It is thus the 
forerunner of the constitution of the United States of America. 
After this the struggle grew even more bitter than before. 
A reward was offered for the assassination of William ; and the 
United Netherlands (for so the seven states were ^ 
now called) at last renounced all allegiance to Philip tion of 
of Spain. In 1584: the last of several attempts on William the 
William's life was successful, and the United ^^^"^• 
Netherlands had to struggle on without his firm guidance. 
Alone they could hardly hope to survive. Before his death 
William had been eagerly negotiating for an alliance with 
France or England ; but Elizabeth of England refused his 
overtures, and though help had come from France, it had been 
of little real use to the United Netherlands. After William's 
death foreign help was more necessary than ever ; and at last 
Elizabeth consented to send help, though she sent it grudgingly 



266 



Outlines of European History 



and in insufficient force. The result, however, of England's 
assistance was that the long-threatening war between England 
Help from and Spain at last came to a fierce outbreak. The 
England. Armada was despatched in 1588, and its defeat 
by the English gunners and its destruction by the winds 
and waves of the Atlantic were a great relief to the hard- 
pressed Netherlanders. 

The defeat of the Armada did not by any means end the 
war ; but never again were the United Netherlands in danger 

of utter destruction. Spain, 
henceforth, was fighting hard 
End of the against both 
war. England and 

France, and could not find 
a sufficient army to cope 
with the heroic and now 
self-confident Dutch. On 
their side, too, a great 
soldier had appeared, Prince 
Maurice, the son of William 
the Silent. In 1597 he 
gained against the Spaniards 
the great battle of Turnhout. 
The Dutch navy, mean- 
while, had established an 
unquestioned supremacy 
over that of Spain ; and 
while Spain was bleed- 
ing to death in conse- 
quence of her many wars and her mistaken financial policy, 
the commerce of the Netherlands was rapidly strengthening 
and advancing. 

At last the Spaniards, as tenacious as the Dutch themselves, 
had to acknowledge defeat. Even so, they were not willing 
Peace at to recognize at once the independence and separate 
last. political existence of the United Netherlands. But 

in 1609 they made a truce for twelve years. At the end of 
the truce the war was renewed, but not with the former energy. 
Dutch independence was safe. The power of Spain was 




Queen Elizabetli. 



France during the Era of the Reformation 267 

sinking. Wliafc she had failed to accompHsh in 1572 there 
was never again any likelihood of her being able to accomplish. 
The importance of these events can hardly be exaggerated. 
The Catholic reaction and the power of Spain had received in 
them a very severe defeat. But, more important importance 
than that, a state of a new type had emerged, of the Dutch 
founded upon the ideas of religious and political Republic, 
liberty ; and this state was for the seventeenth century the 
most progressive state in Europe. When despotism triumphed 
in England and in France, the champions of liberty found an 
asylum in Holland. The absolutism of Louis XIV. of France 
saw in the United Netherlands an enemy that must be over- 
thrown at all costs ; and had it not been for the United 
Netherlands the Eevolution of 1688 in England could hardly 
have taken place. 

Motley's Bise of the Dutch Eepublic and History of the United 
Netherlands. Frederic Harrison's William the Silent (Foreign States- 
men) is an admirable account of the life and time of its subject. 



CHAPTER IX 
France during the Era of the Reformation 

States General called 1560 

Massacre of St. Bartholomev/ 1572 

Assassination of Henry III 1589 

Battle of Ivry 1590 

Edict of Nantes . 1598 

Assassination of Henry IV 1610 

Feaxcis I. during his long rivalry with Charles Y. had at times 
entered into alliance with the Protestants of Germany, and it 
was at one time hoped that he would prove the Francis I. 
protector and supporter of " reformed " opinions and Protest- 
in France — would, in fact, play in France the part an^ism. 
that Henry YIII. played in England. But this was far from 
being the case. After the battle of Pavia he desired the support 



268 Outlines of European History 

of the pope and the clergy, and he had to purchase it by 
measures of repression against the " heretics " of France. His 
measures of persecution had been carried on and intensified by 
Henry II. 

In spite of aE, Protestantism had grown strong in France. 
It had appeared at first as Lutheranism ; but that form of 
Calvinism in Protestantism rarely flourished strongly outside of 
France. Germany. Lutheranism was soon superseded by 

Calvinism, whose severe and logical character seemed better to 
suit the French temperament. By 1560 Calvinism was a really 
serious force, in France, and the French Calvinists received 
the nickname of Huguenots — a word of obscure origin. Pro- 
testantism in France had certain noteworthy characteristics. 
It found its chief support in the south and west, though 
Protestantism as a rule has been the faith of the northern 
nations of Europe. And it is, above all, important to observe 
how largely Calvinism found favour with the nobles of France. 
Its earliest professors and martyrs were drawn from the ranks 
of the middle and industrial classes ; but during the latter half 
of the century it found its chief support among the aristocracy. 
The troth is that in France, as elsewhere, the Reformation 
movement stood in close relation to preceding political and 
social struggles. The nobles had fought against the supremacy 
of the crown, and had been defeated. They saw in the new 
religious movement a chance of renewing the struggle in a 
d liferent form. And thus the Protestant movement in France 
more than elsewhere in Europe (except, perhaps, in Scotland) 
bore a strongly marked political character ; and many of its 
aristocratic champions were self-seeking and hypocritical in their 
religious pretensions. This is, however, by no means 
° ^"^' true of all. European Protestantism produced few 

nobler figures than Coligny, the leader and the martyr of 
French Protestantism. 

Upon the death of Henry II. in 1559 the crown passed 
to his son, Francis II. Bub all the children that his wife 
Catherine de' Catherine de' Medici had borne to him seem to have 
Medici and been feeble in body and mind, and though three in 
herchUdren. succession — Francis II., Charles IX., and Henry 
III. — came to the throne, it was really then- mother who ruled 



France during the Era of the Reformation 269 

for them. Catherine de' Medici had been neglected by her 
husband, and she gladly seized the opportunity of satisfying 
her ambition. Her name is one of the most bitterly execrated 
in history ; but her policy and character have often been mis- 
represented. She was far from being a religious fanatic ; rather, 
she treated the religious controversies of her day with Italian 
levity and detachment of mind. Her aim was to avoid religious 
warfare, and, when it broke out, to bring it to an end, and thus 
to maintain the unity and the strength of France. We must 
sympathize with some of her aims ; but her career was blackened 
and ruined by an absence of all scruple and a readiness to seize 
any means to serve her egotistic purposes. Machiavelli, the 
Florentine writer, had asserted that a ruler was not bound by 
the ordinary laws of morality ; and, though many statesmen of 
the age seemed to act on these principles, none did so more 
clearly than this Florentine lady who had in an evil hour 
become Queen of France. 

The government of France was weak, and as a result a 
meeting of the States-General was called in 1560. The States- 
General were, as we have seen, a body representa- states- 
tive of the three " estates " of France — the clergy, General 
the nobility, and the commons. But, in fact, it summoned, 
was the nobility that had the chief influence ; and the meeting 
of 1560 represented chiefly the desires and aspirations of the 
French nobility. They demanded religious toleration, regular 
meetings of the States-General, and confiscation of Church 
property. The government of France could consent to none 
of these, and its refusal led soon to civil war. 

On the Protestant side the chief figures were the house of 
Bourbon represented by the vacillating King of Navarre and 
his brother, the Duke of Conde ; it was the son Protestant 
of the first named, Henry of JSTavarre, who was and Catholic 
finally carried to the throne by the civil war. Of leaders, 
far nobler nature was the Chatillon family, whose chief repre- 
sentative, Admiral Coligny, has already been mentioned. 
Upon the Catholic side the chief influence lay, not with any 
member of the royal house, but with the noble family of the 
Guises. They were related by marriage with the royal house, 
and were regarded by the party of the Catholic reaction as their 



2 70 Outlines of European History 

leaders. At first it was on Francis, Duke of Guise, that all 
Catholic eyes were fixed ; at his death his son Henry was their 
leader. His position seemed to give him a chance of gaining 
the throne of France, and led him actually to a violent death at 
the hands of the King of France. Standing between Catholics 
and Protestants must be mentioned the Chancellor L'Hopital, 
who represents the noblest humanist spirit of the age, and who 
struggled, and struggled in vain, to find some basis of recon- 
ciliation for Catholics and Protestants. 

The civil war broke out in 1562, and lasted with some in- 
terruptions but no real peace for thirty-eight years. Next to the 
The civil Thirty Years' War in Germany, which will be dealt 
war : its with in the next chapter, it was the most evil and 
character. destructive war that the Reformation period pro- 
duced. It is a peculiarly difficult war to follow, for the fighting 
was desultory and the confusion almost UEJversal. It will be 
enough for our purpose to note the decisive incidents, and to 
summarize the results of the struggle. 

Between 1562 and 1570 three wars are reckoned by the 
historians. The Huguenots fought stubbornly, but usually 
The crisis got the worst of it. A peace was patched up in 
of 1572. 1570 (the Peace of S. Germains), and to many 

it seemed that it would be a permanent peace, which would 
coincide with great European changes. The reigning king 
was Charles IX., and he seemed to be growing weary of the 
influence which his mother, Catherine de' Medici, exercised 
on the policy of France. To him, as to most thinking 
men, it was evident that the result of these civil wars was to 
depress the power and influence of France, and consequently 
to exalt that of her great European rival, Spain. So Charles 
IX. drew near to Coligny, the leader of the Protestants, and 
it seemed that under his influence a permanent religious 
peace might be established in Europe, France might join 
hands with England's queen and the rebels against Spain in 
the Netherlands, and strike a decisive blow against Spain and 
the Catholic reaction. Europe has had no more critical year 
than 1572, when it seemed that these great schemes would be 
carried into execution. 

There came instead the Massacre of S. Bartholomew. 



France during the Era of the Reformation 271 

It was no deep-laid scheme, and Charles IX. was not a 
hypocrite in his professions. Rather is it to be ascribed to 
the determination of Catherine de' Medici and TheMas- 
Heury of Guise to regain, by whatever means, sacre of s. 
the power which seemed slipping from their grasp. Bartholomew. 
Coligny was murdered, and with him thousands of Huguenots 
in Paris and the country. It seemed for the moment that 
Calvinism was destroyed in France ; but the massacre proved 
to be, not only a crime, but a blunder. Protestant hopes in 
Europe had, indeed, received a heavy blow, and the Huguenots 
of France had suffered cruelly, but there were enough left to 
struggle on with the energy of despair. The religious wars 
at once began again, and, with no real intervals of peace, 
lasted yet for over twenty years. In 1574 Charles IX. died, 
and was succeeded by his brother, Henry III., who had won 
some reputation as a soldier in his youth. But he had 
developed into a superstitious voluptuary, and he was soon 
almost equally distrusted by both parties. 

During these later stages the war assumed a somewhat 
different character. Calvinists still opposed Catholics, and 
theological differences still gave rise to the most Rigg ^f ^^^ 
violent passions. But the Huguenots had now to Politique 
abandon the hope of conquering by their unaided P^rty. 
forces, and they looked round for allies among the more 
moderate section of the Catholics. There thus grew up the 
party called the " Politiques," consisting of men who, whether 
Catholic or Protestanfe, put political considerations before 
theological, and aimed at a real union of all classes in France 
on a basis of rehgious toleration. Note, too, that their general 
political theories were almost the opposite of those with which 
the Calvinists had begun the war. They supported now ex- 
treme doctrines of the royal authority, whereas in 1562 
they had fought against royal absolutism, and had tried to 
substitute for it government by the representative States- 
General. The explanation of this change is easily discovered. 
Henry III. was childless, and so was his brother, the Duke 
of Anjou. When these two died, and their health did not 
promise them a long hfe, the next claimant to the throne 
was Henry of Navarre, a Protestant, and the leader of the 



2 72 Outlines of European History 

Huguenot and "politique" party. Thus the success of the 
Protestant cause in France seemed bound up with the claims 
of strict hereditary succession. 

While the Protestants had thus made alliance with the 
Politiques, and supported the absolute claims of the crown, 
The Holy the Catholic party had undergone an opposite 
League. transformation. They repudiated hereditary right 

and supported the claim of the States- General ; they declared 
that no heretic had any claim to the throne of France, and 
they were ready to join in alliance with Spain, the great enemy 
of France, or even to declare themselves subjects of Spain, if 
thus they could maintain the supremacy of Catholic orthodoxy. 
Their organization was known as the " Holy League," and 
was largely under the influence of the Jesuits. "When in 1584 
the Duke of Anjou died, the question of the succession became 
an urgent one. An elderly prince of the royal family, Cardinal 
Bourbon, was adopted by the Holy liCague as their nominal 
candidate, but, in fact, some supported the claims of Henry of 
Guise, and others those of PhiHp II. of Spain. 

Now French history becomes a scene of furious confusion. 
The king, Henry III., though a Catholic and one of the chief 
, agents of the Bartholomew massacre, was offended 
fpp°^tion to by the anti-royalist tone of the Holy League, and 
the Holy regarded Henry of Guise with wild jealousy. This 
League. ^^g increased by what is known as the Day of the 
Barricades in 1588, when Paris rose in support of Henry of 
Guise, and drove King Henry, in terror of his life, from his 
own capital. The king's position was most difficult. He was 
suspected and powerless in the camp of the Holy League, and 
it was Henry of Guise who really reigned in their hearts. 
Assassination suggested itself as a remedy to this true son of 
Catherine de' Medici, and at Christmas of the year 1588 he 
had Henry of Guise murdered. 

But his position in the Holy League was not thereby 
improved. Rather he was regarded by all zealous 
SSimseif Catholics as the declared enemy of their cause, 
with Henry To whom could he look for help ? He was forced 
of Navarre, i^^ ^]^q pressure of circumstances to turn to 
his great rival, Henry of Navarre, to recognize his claim 



France during the Era of the Reformation 273 

to the succession, and to promise religious toleration for 
Huguenots. The principal author of the S. Bartholomew 
Massacre adopted the language of a William the Silent or 
L'Hopital, and spoke of the wickedness of forcing the 
consciences of men. 

This strange alliance gave the two Henrys overwhelming 
military strength, and it seemed that, in 1589, the Holy 
League would be utterly crushed. Paris, indeed, Assassina- 
held out for the League ; but the king and tion of 
Henry of Navarre laid siege to Paris, and it Henry III. 
seemed that the city would soon be forced to surrender through 
starvation. But religious fanaticism was at fever heat in 
Paris, and a friar made his way into the camp of the besiegers 
and stabbed Henry III. His death produced an instant 
change in the situation. Many who had served Henry IIL 
because he was a Catholic and the legitimate King of France 
by hereditary right, now refused to follow the standard of the 
heretical Henry of Navarre. The siege of Paris had to be 
abandoned, and Henry of Navarre was again an adventurer 
fighting for the crown. 

During the next two years he fought with a courage and 
audacity and success that endeared his name to Frenchmen. 
In 1590 he won the battle of Ivry, and pressed ^^ . 
hard upon Paris. Again the city was reduced to Navarre fails 
the extremity of famine, and seemed certain to to conquer 
fall ; and, if Henry gained Paris, he would gain ^^^°^^* 
France. But again Paris was saved. The Holy League was 
now in close alliance with Spain. A Spanish army marched 
into France from the Netherlands under the command of the 
great Duke of Parma, and relieved Paris. Henry had mean- 
time entered into an alliance with Elizabeth of England ; but, 
even with English help, it seemed that he could not win the 
crown of France by his sword alone. 

Another way had for some years been suggested. If he 
were to declare himself a Catholic, all resistance would collapse, 
and the vast majority even of Catholic French- Thg conver- 
men would readily obey a king whose personal sion of Henry 
gallantry and genial humanity had become a of Navarre, 
proverb in France* Henry debated the queption long and 



2 74 Outlines of European History 

carefully, looking at it chiefly from the political point of 
view, for his theological convictions had no very strong hold 
upon his conscience. At last he determined to make " the 
great plunge." Paris seemed to him "well worth a mass." 
He was instructed in the Catholic faith ; declared himself 
convinced, and went to mass on July 25, 1593. The antici- 
pated results were not slow to follow. Town after town 
surrendered into his hands. Next year he entered Paris, and 
soon could boast that he reigned over a united people. 

The kingdom which he had thus won was torn with the 
effects of a thirty years' civil war ; and difficulties had to be 
The condition faced on every side. France was at war with 
of France. Spain ; the Huguenots were discontented ; the 
nobles were inclined to be rebellious ; the finances of the 
country were in almost hopeless confusion. Henry lY. (for 
such was his title now) faced all these difficulties with courage 
and a large measure of success. 

Spain was less dangerous than she seemed ; her resources 
were utterly exhausted, and the country was rapidly sinking 
The war from the position of importance which it had 
with Spain, held for two centuries among the nations of 
Europe. The disorders of France had allowed Spain to win 
some successes, but when Henry devoted his undivided 
attention to the war, it was soon over. In 1598 he forced 
Spain to accept the Peace of Yervins. In the same year 
Philip II. died. Few rulers have entertained greater or more 
ambitious projects ; but he had accomplished hardly any of 
his schemes. The united Netherlands were practically in- 
dependent ; England was triumphant at sea ; Protestantism 
was vigorous and victorious in Northern Europe ; Spain her- 
self was, in spite of or because of her vast empire, poor and 
exhausted. The annexation of Portugal was his only con- 
siderable success ; and that has not proved permanent. 

As soon as peace was in sight, Henry turned to the ques- 
tion of the Huguenots. They were indignant to see the 
The Edict prince, for whom they had fought so long and 
of Nantes. so stubbornly, reigning as a Catholic king, and 
giving his chief confidence to his new co-religionists. Their 
discontent might not impossibly issue in civil war. But in 



The Thirty Years' War in Germany 275 

1598 Henry IV. issued the great Edict of Nantes, by which 
freedom of worship was given to the Huguenots, and they were 
put on an equality with the Catholics for all careers both civil 
and military. And, in order to show them that this religious 
equality was to be a genuine measure, they were allowed to 
garrison certain towns with exclusively Protestant troops, 
and to have law cases tried by tribunals containing both 
Protestant and Catholic judges. It was a glorious measure. 
No other country in Europe gave such favourable terms to 
religious dissidents. Eoman Catholics in England did not 
enjoy such a position for nearly two centuries and a half. 
The privileges granted to the Protestants were, indeed, so 
great as to be dangerous to them. They became an object of 
jealousy and fear ; and in less than a century the edict was 
withdrawn, to the infinite loss of France. 

The financial and domestic reforms of Henry lY. were less 
decisive. He was determined to develop the power of the 
monarchy, and all representative institutions were Domestic 
depressed or neglected. His minister, Sully, did reforms, 
much for the finances and agriculture of France. But much 
remained to be done when, in 1610, Henry was assassinated as 
he was about to set out to take part in a war which threatened 
to break out in Germany. 

Histories of France as before, WillerVs Henry of Navarre (Heroes of 
the Nations) ; BaircVs Rise of the Huguenots. 



CHAPTER X 
The Thirty Vears' War in Germany 

Beginning of the straggle in Bohemia . . 1618 

Edict of Restitution 1629 

Battle of Breitenfeld 1631 

Battle of Liitzen 1632 

Peace of Westphalia 1648 

^YB have not devoted attention to the affairs of G-ermany since 
the Peace of Augsburg (1555), We saw that the terms of that 
peace made it clear that the efforts of the Emperor to reimpose 



276 Outlines of European History 

Catholicism on all Germany, even in a modified form, had failed. 
Each of the many sovereign states of Germany was left to 
take its own line in religious matters. The peace was a mere 
breathing-space. None of the pressing questions had been 
settled. 

It is easy to see what were the chief causes of the great 
conflagration which was to afflict Germany for thirty years. 
Cause of the The Peace of Augsburg had extended toleration to 
Thirty Years' Lutherans alone ; and since the peace, Calvinism 
^^' had gained a very strong hold on Germany. The 

Elector Palatine and the Elector of Brandenburg were Calvinists, 
and they were important forces in Germany. What was to be 
the position of these Calvinist states in the Germany of the 
future ? Next, the Peace of Augsburg had laid it down that 
all ecclesiastical states (and they were many and powerful in 
Germany), which had become Protestant before 1552, should 
remain so, but that no conversions after 1552 could be 
recognized. Now since 1552, eight bishoprics had become 
Protestant. According to the Treaty of Augsburg, they should 
have been handed over to Catholic rulers, but they were in fact 
possessed by Protestant and secular rulers in defiance of the 
stipulations of the peace. 

But there were other causes independent of the Peace of 
Augsburg. Since 1555 the CathoUc reaction had spread and 
The Catholic achieved extraordinary success in Germany. The 
reaction in preaching of the Jesuits and the activity of the 
Germany. Inquisition had completely expelled Protestantism 
from Austria, Bavaria, and the neighbouring kingdom of 
Poland. These and other victories raised the hopes of 
Catholicism once more. It seemed possible that in Germany, 
the original home of Protestantism, it might be utterly de- 
stroyed and that the whole country might return to the Roman 
obedience. Maximilian of Bavaria, and Ferdinand of Austria, 
soon to be emperor, were warm supporters of Catholicism in 
its new and aggressive phase. And while Catholicism was thus 
confident, the Protestant enthusiasm had notably cooled. The 
Protestant outlook was unquestionably dark. 

The Thirty Years' War did not spring wholly from reli- 
gious causes. It was also a great effort on the part of the 



The Thirty Years' War in Germany 277 

Empire to reassert its authority in Germany ; to counteract 
the political disintegration that had gone on in the organiza- 
tion of the Empire since the thirteenth century ; PoUticai am- 
and to make the Emperor the real ruler and not bitionsof the 
merely the titular head of all German states. Emperor. 

Thus, though the course of the struggle is difficult and 
obscure, the issues at stake are plain. 

Bohemia had been the scene of fierce anti-Catholic move- 
ments long before the Reformation, and Protestant opinions had 
a strong hold there, especially among the nobles, xh fi t 
In 1618 the long smouldering fires broke into flame, phase : the 
Ferdinand of Austria, the future Emperor, and a Bohemian 
stroDg supporter of the Catholic Reaction, had been ^^' 
elected King. But when, in defiance of imperial promises, he 
proceeded to demolish Protestant churches he encountered strong 
opposition. There was fierce rioting in Prague which led to 
the outbreak of war between Protestant Bohemia and the forces 
of Catholicism and the Empire. Without help the Bohemian 
Lutherans could not hope to maintain their cause. They 
appealed in vain to the Lutheran Elector of Saxony, but at last 
prevailed upon Frederick, the Elector Palatine, a Calvinist, to 
accept the Bohemian crown and champion their cause. But 
he had neither the character nor the power to caiTy through 
the enterprise to a successful issue.' By 1622 the imperial 
forces had not only triumphed in Bohemia, but had driven the 
Elector Palatine from all his territories in the upper and lower 
Palatinate. It was a great victory for the forces of Catholicism 
and the Empire, and seemed to promise still greater. 

The Bohemian war had been a comparatively small affair, 
but now German affairs began to demand the attention of 
all Europe. Frederick, the Elector Palatine, was _ 
son-in-law of James I. of England, and he eagerly phase : Wai- 
desired to see him reinstated in his dominions, lenstein. 
But all the neighbours of Germany were deeply Jealousy of 
concerned in the prospect of a vast advance in the ^^^^* 

power and activity of the Empire, which was closely con- 
nected by relationship and alliance with Spain. To France 
this Austro-Spanish power was the traditional enemy, and in 
the end decisive interference came from the side of France, 



278 Outlines of European History 

But at first it was rather the Protestant kings of Denmark and 
Sweden who saw with alarm the growth of a power which 
they feared for both religious and pohtical reasons. It was 
The inter- King Christian of Denmark who first came forward 
vention of to the Support of the Protestant cause, and the 
Denmark. Empire was threatened at the same time by an 
insurrection in Hungary. But there appeared on the imperial 
side a great soldier, Wallenstein. He was a Bohemian and a 
Protestant by birth, but he had become a Roman Catholic and 
attached himself to the imperial service. He was a great 
soldier and a capable organizer ; he attracted the military 
adventurers of all countries to his standard by promises of 
high and regular pay, and men of all religions were welcome. 
He soon crushed all the enemies of the Empire. The forces of 
Christian of Denmark were entirely defeated and forced into 
the service of Wallenstein. He besieged and occupied most of 
the towns on the Baltic, though Stralsund offered a successful 
resistance. In spite of this important check, he was so 
successful by 1629 that the Emperor could force his will on 
Germany in the Peace of Liibeck and the Edict of Restitution. 
By the first. Christian of Denmark was compelled to abandon 
all his claims within the Empire ; while by the Edict of Restitu- 
tion it was declared that all Church lands *• secularized " since 
the Peace of Augsburg must be restored to the Catholic 
Church. The great archbishoprics of Magdeburg and Bremen, 
and more than a hundred smaller ecclesiastical states, were 
affected by the edict. 

The imperial and Catholic victory seemed complete. Who 
could resist Wallenstein's army ? Yet the very completeness 
German ^^ ^^^ victory raised difficulties. The smaller 

jealousy ot powers of Germany saw with profound alarm the 
Wallenstein. i^ieasures of religious persecution undertaken by 
the government, and even the allies of Ferdinand feared to be 
overshadowed by his power. Wallenstein was already enter- 
taining designs which would carry him beyond the position of 
a subject. And if Sweden and France had been jealous of 
the imperial position in 1G22, what were their feelings likely 
to be now ? It was from Sweden that the next interference 
came. 



The Thirty Years' War in Germany 279 

The danger in which German Protestantism stood, and the 

attack which Wallenstein had made on the posses- _ 

sions of Sweden to the south of the Baltic, were phase : 

a direct challenge to the King of Sweden ; and Gustavus 

events in Germany soon gave him a good oppor- Adoiphus 
^ ■, n ■ . <; of Sweden, 

tunity tor interierence. 

In 1630 the Emperor summoned the diet of the Empire to 
llatisbon. His chief anxiety was to secure the election of his 
son, Ferdinand, as King of the Romans — a title The Diet of 
which would give him an assured prospect of Ratisbon. 
succeeding to the Empire on his father's death. But he found 
the diet in no yielding mood. The electors felt that the 
growing power of the Emperor threatened their independent 
existence, and they saw in Wallenstein his most dreaded agent. 
They refused to make any concession until "Wallenstein was 
dismissed, and the Emperor was at last forced to consent to 
bis dismissal. Wallenstein retired in bitter indignation into 
Bohemia, and, men said, " seemed to carry the imperial crown 
with him." He was succeeded as general of the imperial 
forces by Tilly, a far weaker man. 

The retirement of Wallenstein gave an opportunity for 
further interference on behalf of the Protestants of Germany, 
and the opportunity was seized by Gustavus Landing of 
Adolphus, the heroic Xing of Sweden. He had Gustavus 
personal and territorial interests in the contest ; Adolphus. 
but he was genuinely ready to fight and suffer in the cause of 
Protestantism. He landed near Stralsund in 1630, with an army 
of forty thousand men. He was sincerely religious and devout, 
but intensely practical and energetic, and had real genius for the 
conduct of military operations. His troops were well disciplined 
and kept from the licence and plunder which disgraced the 
other armies during the Thirty Years' War. He introduced new 
methods into warfare, moved his troops with greater rapidity 
than had been previously used, and made more use of firearms. 
Note, too, that Gustavus received important assistance from 
France. France was at this time practically governed by the great 
Cardinal Eichelieu ; and Richelieu saw with increasing anxiety 
the development of the imperial power in Germany. He made 
a treaty with Gustavus, and granted him assistance in money. 



28o 



Outlines of European History 



At first the Protestant powers of Germany looked askance at 
their great deliverer: they mistrusted Gnstavus as a foreigner, and 
The victories ^he Calvinists suspected bim as a Lutheran. But 
of King the victories 'and the frightful excesses of the 

Gustavus. imperial armies under Tilly soon drove them into 
alliance with him. In 1631 he was joined by Brandenburg and 
Saxony, two of the most powerful of the German states. Thus 
supported, he struck irresistibly into the centre of Germany. 
In September, 1631, he fought the great battle of Breitenfeld, 

near Leipzic, and completely 
overthrew the imperial forces. 
Vienna seemed at his mercy ; 
but instead of attacking the 
Austrian capital he turned 
westwards against the eccle- 
siastical states of the Upper 
Danube and the Ehine. No- 
where was any serious resist- 
ance made to him ; Bavaria 
and the Rhine lands fell into 
his power. 

So portentous did this 
power and the victories of 
Deaths of Gustavus Adol- 
Gustavus and phus seem to be 
Waiienstein. ^-^^^ ^he Emperor 

had to turn to the great 
soldier whom he had dis- 
missed with contumely ; for if any one could save the 
Empire it was Waiienstein. He only consented to resume his 
command on terms that made him almost master of Germany. 
But he collected a great army — the prestige of his name was 
sufficient to make soldiers flock to his banner — and he faced 
Gustavus in November, 1632, at Liitzen, near to the battlefield 
of Breitenfeld. In the great battle that followed Gustavus 
was victorious, but died in the moment of victory. Wallen- 
stein's death followed shortly afterwards. He was too powerful 
for a subject. He assumed the position of an independent 
ruler. It seemed as though the Emperor would have to struggle 




Gustavus Adolphus. 

Born, 1594 ; invades Germany, 1630 ; 
gains the battle of Breitenfeld, 1G31 ; 
killed at Liitzen, 1632. 



The Thirty Years' War in Germany 281 

against his own general ; but in February, 1634, Wallenstein 
was assassinated. 

The deaths of G-ustavus and Wallenstein might seem to 
balance one another, but without Gustavus the Protestants 
were too weak to struggle against their enemies. Protestant 
In September, 1634, the Swedish and Protestant defeat at 
forces under Bernard of Saxe-Weimar were utterly Nordling-en. 
defeated at Nordlingen. So overwhelming was the defeat that 
both Brandenburg and Saxony joined the imperial side. The 
triumph of Austria and the Catholic reaction seemed assured. 

Protestantism in Germany was saved by Catholic France ; 
the great agent in its deliverance was a cardinal of the 
Church of Rome. ^Ye shall see in the next chapter 
how France was growing united and strong, while phase°"the 
Germany was falling into hopeless disunion. The interference 
interest of Richelieu in the Thirty Years' War was of France, 
entirely political. The Austrian house and the ^s''^^^3" ^""^ 
allied Spanish house had now for generations been 
the great enemy and rival of France. If the Empire were to 
become a centralized and effective government instead of the 
loose and helpless confederation which it was at present, the 
power of France would be seriously threatened. So when, 
after the battle of Nordlingen, it was clear that Germany 
would fall helplessly into the hands of the Empire unless help 
came from outside, Richelieu determined to give that help ; 
and in 1635 France openly entered into the war against the 
Empire and Spain. 

We need not give any details. It is enough to say that at 
first France was by no means successful. Her untrained armies 
were defeated by the veteran soldiers who had The victory 
been trained in the terrible experiences of the of France. 
Thirty Years' War. But the French profited by their disasters. 
Richelieu and, after Richeheu's death in 1642, his successor, 
Cardinal Mazarin, were great organizers and diplomatists. 
Great generals such as Turenne and Conde rose up on the side 
of France ; Spain and the Empire were terribly exhausted ; and 
at last, in 1648, thanks to the skill of the French generals and 
the diplomatic astuteness of Cardinal Mazarin, the long agony 
of the Thirty Years' War was brought to an end by the great 



282 Outlines of European History 

Peace of Westphalia. The general results of the war, as laid 
down in this famous and important peace, must be carefully 
noted. 

The effort of the Emperors to control and unite the Empire 

had been wholly defeated. The Peace of Westphalia declared 

that the Empire could no longer be regarded as 

Results of an effective state. It was henceforth clearly a 

trip 1PP3PP OT 

Westphalia. ^^^^^ confederation of states, large and small (the 
(a) Germany, number as fixed by the peace was 343), and 
within the Empire there was no power that could 
enforce on all the acceptance of laws, or the levying of soldiers, 
or the granting of taxes. The Austrian or Hapsburg Emperors 
having thus failed, a chance was left for some other power to 
secure the leadership of Germany, and perhaps succeed where 
Austria had failed. We shall see how this task was carried out 
with wonderful success by the Electors of Brandenburg, who 
soon came to be called Kings of Prussia. We may note, too, 
that by the peace the United Netherlands and Switzerland 
were legally declared to be, what they had actually long been, 
independent of the Empire. 

France had gained much in prestige during the later years 
of the war, and the exhaustion of the Empire and Spain left her 
the chief Power in Europe. She made also con- 
siderable territorial gains. Upper and Lower 
Alsace, " with ,all the rights that formerly belonged to the 
Empire," were ceded to her by the peace, and she became 
formally possessed of the " Three Bishoprics " of Metz, Toul, 
and Yerdun, with their territories ; and these gains were a 
very material strengthening of her eastern frontier. 

Note further that with the Peace of Westphalia the era of 
the Reformation may be said to come to an end. It ended 
(c) The end ^^ ^ drawn battle. The early hopes of the 
of the Re- Reformers, that Roman Catholicism would be 
formation. entirely destroyed, were now quite abandoned ; and 
the effort of the Catholic reaction, to win back all Europe to 
the Roman obedience, had also failed. Henceforth both forms 
of religion would have to exist side by side in Europe, and 
some form of religious toleration became a prime necessity of 
all progressive states. 



The Growth of the French Monarchy 283 

The Thirty Years' War, at the course of which we have 
glanced, was the cruellest and most destructive of all modern wars. 
The destruction of population by war, pestilence, R^gg of 
and famine had been enormous : it has been esti- international 
mated that at least a half of the population of ^^^* 
Germany perished. But the very foulness and barbarity of the 
contest produced a valuable reaction. The great Dutchman, 
Grotius, appalled by a war which seemed to " let loose every 
crime," meditated on the possibility of discovering some check 
on the worst excesses of war, and in his great work, Be, Jure 
Belli et Pads (1625), laid the foundations of international law. 

Henderson'' s History of Germany ; Gardiner's Thirty Years' War 
(Epochs of Modern History) ; Fletcher's Gustavus Adoljjhus (Heroes of 
the Nations) ; Schiller's Wallenstein and Ficcolomini. 



CHAPTER XI 
The Growth of the French Monarchy 

Cardinal Richelieu in chief influence . . . 1624 

Capture of Rochelle 1628 

Death of Richelieu . . . ' . . . . . . 1642 

Outbreak of the Fronde 1648 

Triumph of Mazarin 1653 

Peace of the Pyrenees 1659 

France was the one great Power in Europe during the 
seventeenth century. While the Empire was engaged in a 
suicidal war, while Spain was sinking under the x^e supre- 
strain of her empire, and England was occupied macy of 
with the domestic problems that led to the Puritan France. 
Revolution, France meanwhile was growing in unity, and her 
government was more and more completely concentrated in the 
hands of the monarchy. By the middle of the century she was 
distinctly superior to any single rival, and showed herself able 
to hold her own against the powerful coalitions that were formed 
ajrainst her. 



284 Outlines of European History 

The result of the civil wars of the Eeformation period had 
been to strengthen the monarchy ; and Henry TV. had made the 
Reaction authority of the crown supreme over all rivals — 
after the over States-General, Parlements, and religious 

death of organizations. But at his death his son was only 

Henry IV. ^^^^^ years of age, and there seemed a chance that 
the discontented elements of French society might manage to 
overthrow or to weaken the authority of the crown. There 
followed a period of unrest and reaction. The nobles and 
the Protestants rose in civil war. They insisted upon the 
summoning of the States-General, and in 1614 this cumbrous 
representative body met for the last time before the French 
Revolution. But the reaction was superficial. The real move- 
ment in France was toward a strong monarchy, and when, in 
1624, Cardinal Eichelieu became the young king's chief 
minister, he devoted himself with complete success to the 
development of the power of the absolute monarchy. 

Cardinal Richelieu's position in history is a very strange 
one. He was a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, and 
Cardinal jet he was, for the most part, in league with Pro- 
Richelieu, testants against the forces of Catholicism. He 
was the chief agent of the crown, and worked incessantly 
for the advancement of the French monarchy, and yet 
he was always at variance with the members of the royal 
family, and not always on the best of terms with the king him- 
self. He was no royalist of the English Cavalier pattern ; he 
looked upon the monarchy not as an end, but as a means — as a 
means to the strength and glory of France. He was a sincere 
Catholic, but the politician in him was far stronger than the 
ecclesiastic, and hence it was that he was so often in conflict 
with the pope and the Catholic reaction in Europe. The double 
object of all his policy was (1) to raise the authority of the 
crown in France above all rival powers, and (2) to make France 
the dominant power in Europe. He succeeded wonderfully in 
both objects. 

Let us take his domestic policy first. The rivals by which 
the authority of the crown seemed threatened were chiefly the 
Protestants and the aristocracy, and we have seen that in 
France Protestantism and aristocracy were closely related. 



The Growth of the French Monarchy 285 




286 Outlines of European History 

Richelieu had no feelings of religious antagonism against the 
Huguenots of France, but he feared them as a political force. 
Domestic ^^^ Edict of Nantes had given them dangerous 
policy of powers, and thej had used them daring the 
Richelieu. minority of Louis XIII. to produce a dangerous 
civil war. Richelieu struck against their privileges again 
and again ; and the end came in 1628. Then the great 
Siege of cardinal led the royal forces against La Rochelle, 

Rocheiie. the stronghold of Protestantism. The siege that 
followed is one of the most memorable in history. The 
Huguenots fought with heroic stubbornness, but in the end 
starvation did its work, and the city surrendered. The 
Huguenots were left religious liberty and civil equality, but 
their legal and military guarantees were taken from them. 
Henceforward, they were told, they must trust only " to the 
word of a king." Sixty years later they found how dehisive 
a thing that was to trust to I 

The blow that had fallen upon the Huguenots was in 
itself a serious check to the power of the nobles. But 
„. , ,. , Richelieu knew them to be the most serious 

Richelieu s • /. i i t t i • 

measures enemies of the crown, and reduced their power 

against the still further. Any unruliness on the part of 
anstocracy. noblemen was punished with exceptional severity. 
Richelieu says "he was harsh to the few in order that he 
might be kind to the many." Some of the greatest of the 
French aristocracy atoned on the scaffold for intrigues or 
rebellion against him. Further, he destroyed their great 
fortified castles, by virtue of which they had been important 
military powers in the earlier centuries. But the chief blow 
which he struck against their power was by excluding them 
from the work of government and administration, which had 
P^'^'^iously been largely in their hands. Hence- 
forth the local government of France was in the 
hands of royal intendants, men usually drawn from the middle 
class of society, and sent into the provinces to represent the 
royal authority. The nobles of France remained rich, and had 
great social influence, and held all the important posts in the 
army, but henceforth, until the coming of the Revolution, 
they had little influence on the government of France. They 



The Growth of the French Monarchy 287 

had wrestled with the monarchy for five centuries and were 
now completely overthrown. 

Great as was Richelieu's influence on the domestic life of 
France, it is as a foreign statesman and diplomatist that he is 
best known. He possessed great strength of will, Richelieu as 
a deep knowledge of the political condition of diplomatist. 
Europe, and he was unsurpassed in diplomatic skill. His great 
effort was to counteract the schemes of the Austro-Spanish 
power, and to raise the power of France amidst the confusion 
and wars of the century. Even 
before France actually threw 
• herself into the war, the per- 
sistence, energy, and skill of 
Richelieu had made the in- 
fluence of France preponde- 
rate in the Thirty Years' War, 
and we have already seen 
that it was the military power 
of France which brought the 
great struggle in Germany to 
an end in 1648. 

He had done his work 
amidst constant intrigues 
against his power Richelieu's 
and authority. His relation to 
bearing in the face ^^^ ^^"^• 
of these intrigues, the half- 
sympathy of King Louis XIII. 
with them, ,and Richelieu's 

final triumph over them, give to history some of its most 
romantic images. It is impossible even to glance at them here. 
It is enough to emphasize that the absolute monarchy of 
France was more the work of Richelieu than of any other 
single statesman. The great age of French history deserves 
to be called rather the Age of Richelieu than the Age of 
Louis xiy. 

His death in December, 1642, was soon followed by that 
of his royal master, Louis XIIL, in May, 1643. The removal 
of these two great figures left the field open for renewed 




Cardinal Eichelieu. 

Born, 1585 ; Minister of Louis XIII., 1624 
died, i642. 



288 



Outlines of European History 



intrigues on the parb of the nobility ; for Louis XIV. was a 
child only five years old, and it did not at first seem that 
Deaths of Richelieu had any capable successor. The govern- 
Richelieu and ment of France was in the hands of the queen- 
Louis XIII. mother, Anne of Austria, and she lacked entirely 
the character and talents necessary for beating down the 
turbulent elements of French society. 

Under these circumstances, then, there broke out the 
movement which is known as the " Fronde." It was, in 
The wars of effect, the last rally of the discontented elements 
the Fronde, of French society against the power of the 
monarchy, the last before the great Revolution of 1789, 

in which the monarchy and 
the old order both disap- 
peared. It was partly stimu- 
lated by the contemporary 
Puritan and Parliamentary 
movement in England, and 
at first aimed at procuring 
for France a constitutional 
form of government. But 
the past history of France 
made such an enterprise 
very difficult. In England, 
representative and parliamen- 
tary institutions had struck 
so deep a root that it would 
have required a force greater 
than that of the Stuarts to 
have destroyed them. But in 
France the position was quite different. The king had been 
for centuries the real representative of the French people, 
and had usually taken their part against the nobility. The 
States- General were no necessary part of French political life, 
and at this juncture the aspirations of France towards a con- 
stitution found a voice not in the States- General, but in the 
Parlement of Paris. The Parlement of Paris was not a re- 
presentative body at all, either in the method of its appoint- 
ment or in its character. It was a body of lawyers and 




Louis XIV. 

Bora, 1638 ; began to reign, 1643 ; died, 1715 



The Growth of the French Monarchy 289 

judges, who were concerned primarily not with the making of 
the laws, but with the administration of justice. They held 
their office by hereditary right, and, though there were noble 
and patriotic figures among their numbers, their outlook was 
that of lawyers, not of statesmen. Thus the first constitutional 
phase of the Fronde was soon over, and it was succeeded by a 
movement of mere aristocratic opposition to the crown. Prince 
Coude, a great soldier, who had distinguished himself in the 
war against Spain, was the chief actor in this " aristocratic 
Fronde," and it derives its chief interest from his struggle 
with his greater and nobler rival, Marshal Turenne. 

In resisting these dangers the queen-regent relied on her 
favourite and minister, Cardinal Mazarin. He had been chosen 
by Richelieu as his successor, and, though he lacked Cardinal 
altogether Richelieu's nobility of character and his Mazarin. 
extraordinary energy, he continued his policy with consummate 
skill and success. He was an Italian by origin, and never com- 
pletely at home in France, and his foreign origin was one reason 
why he was so bitterly hated by the French nobles. His real 
skill shows itself in diplomacy and the handling of foreign 
aifairs ; in his relations to the Fronde he was subtle, elusive, 
often apparently defeated, but in the end victorious. The nobles 
were not popular in France, though the city of Paris gave them 
for a time its support. It told heavily against them that they 
consented to an alliance with the national enemy, Spain ; and 
Conde, who had gained his great victories over Spanish soldiers, 
now commanded those very soldiers against his own countrymen. 
So Mazarin and the queen-mother triumphed. Conde was con- 
demned to death in his absence ; Parlement was forbidden to 
concern itself with affairs of state ; government by intendanis 
was re-established ; and after 1653 the authority of the king 
was restored without rival in France. 

Meanwhile Mazarin had been conducting the foreign affairs 
of France with signal success. The later stages of the Thirty 
Years' War were influenced by him, and the peace Mazarin and 
of Westphalia was a proof of his diplomatic skill, the war with 
AYe have seen something of these events already, Spam, 
and need not go through them again. But we must note care- 
fully that though the Peace of Westphalia brought the Thirty 

u 



290 Outlines of European History 

Years' War to an end, it did not give peace to France. The 
Empire had retired from the strugjj:le, but Spain remained in the 
field, and ten more years of dragging warfare ensued before 
Mazarin terminated the Spanish struggle in a manner satisfactory 
to France. It was the civil war of the Second Fronde which 
allowed the war with Spain to be thus prolonged, but, even when 
France was at peace within her own borders, her exhaustion was 
so great that she seemed incapable of delivering the final blow 
to Spain. However, in 1657, Cardinal Mazarin — the Catholic 
royalist — negotiated an alliance with the regicide Puritan Crom- 
well (although the wife of Charles I. was aunt of Louis XIY.), 
and it was the English Ironsides that brought the war to an end. 
Conde and the Spaniards were beaten near Dunkirk in 1658, 
and shortly afterwards Spain accepted, at the hands of France, 
the Treaty of the Pyrenees. France gained no great amount of 
territory by this peace, though certain cessions by Spain rounded 
off the French frontier to the north and south. The most im- 
portant point was that a marriage was arranged between King 
Louis XIY. and Maria Theresa, princess of Spain. At the time 
of the marriage the king solemnly promised that he would never 
make any claim upon the territories of Spain by virtue of this 
marriage. We shall see how soon he broke this promise, and 
how this marriage was the direct cause of two wars, tbe latter 
of which was one of the most disastrous that France had ever 
waged. 

Lodge's Bichelieu (Foreign Statesmen) ; Biclielieu by /. B. Perl-ins 
(Heroes of tbe Nations) ; France under Bichelieu and Colbert, by J. H. 
Bridges, 



The Ascendency of France under Louis XIV 291 

CHAPTER XII 
The Ascendency of France under Louis XIV 

Colbert, Finance Minister 1661 

Invasion of Holland 1672 

Seizure of Strassburg . 1681 

Revocation of Edict of Nantes 1685 

War with the Grand Alliance i683 

War of Spanish Succession ...... 1701 

Peace of Utrecht 1713 

Richelieu and Mazarin had done their work eilecfcively. The 
French monarchy held an ascendency in Europe greater than 
had been held by any monarchy since the days of the CaroHngian 
empire. Louis XIV. had begun to reign in 1643, in his sixth 
year, but while Mazarin lived the affairs of France were always 
in the hands of the great minister. When he died, however, 
in 1661, Louis XIY. declared that he would have no other 
*' First Minister," and that it was henceforth his intention to 
rule as well as reign. He accomplished his purpose ; he con- 
trolled the destinies of France for fifty-five years, and as long 
as he lived he was the most prominent figure in Europe. He 
was not a man of genius, or a really great statesman ; but he 
was capable, energetic, and dignified. So great was the prestige 
of the French monarchy under him that its etiquette and its 
manners soon spread to aU other courts in Europe. 

AYhile Louis XIY. reigned, many wars were fought, and the 
position of the European powers materially altered ; but more 
important than his wars and his diplomacy was the ^j^^^. . 
type of civilization which was developed in France istics of 
during " the Age of Louis XIV." There was un- the Ag^e of 
questionably a great refinement of manners, the ^o^^sXiv. 
king himself setting the example of a dignified courtesy, and 
this refinement has never ceased to act on European society. 
The provincial differences of France were also to a great extent 
destroyed. An uniform system of administration and type of 
civilization spread over all France. At the same time the 
literary and intellectual movement which had begun in the days 



292 



Outlines of European History 



of Eiclielieu and Mazarin cnlmiriated, and the dramatists and 
critics of France became the arbiters of taste for all Europe. 
The French drama reached its highest development in the hands 
of Corneille, Racine, and Moliere ; and, though the French type 
of drama was very different from that established in England 
by Shakespeare, ifc gave to the world in tragedy a very noble 
and stimulating form of art, while in pure comedy the work of 
Moliere has not been surpassed or equalled. But it was not 
only in the lighter forms of literature that the age of Louis 




The Palace of Versailles. 

The Palace of Versailles was the creation of Louis XIV. It is believed to have cost nearly 
twenty million pounds sterling ; and was only one of many palaces possessed by the 
Kings of France. The ambitious building schemes of the Kings of France were a very 
heavy burden to the finances of the State. 



XI Y. was great ; it contributed also great names to philosophy 
and thought. Descartes is one of the world's most fundamental 
thinkers, and only a little inferior in importance is the work of 
Bossuet and Pascal. The " Age of Louis XIY." marks a very 
great advance in European culture. 

The early years of Louis XIY. 's reign were much influenced 
by his great minister, Colbert, and under his reforming guidance 
Colbert's the economic condition of France wonderfully 
reforms. improved. It appeared for a time that France 

was going to set her heart on pacific progress to the neglect of 



The Ascendency of France under Louis XIV 293 

military glory ; and in all tlie reforms of the early years of 
Louis Xiy.'s rule, Colbert had an important influence. (1) He 
made great changes in the administration of the (a) The 
finances. It had been the custom of the French finances. 
Governments to farm out the collection of the taxes to middle- 
men (called partisans), who paid down a sum of money to the 
Government and then made what profit they could by exacting 
the taxes from the people. This indirect method of tax- 
collecting was as old as the Roman Empire, but it was wasteful, 
oppressive, and irritating. Colbert maintained the system in 
principle, but by careful supervision and the rigorous enforce- 
ment of justice at once decreased the burdens of the people and 
increased the income of the State. (2) Colbert did his utmost 
also to stimulate French commerce. He found that the world's 
trade was for the most part in the hands of England (6) Com- 
and Holland, and was carried out by them chiefly merce. 
through the agency of trading companies. Colbert founded 
several companies (the most important were the West Indian 
Company, and the East Indian Company) to compete 
with the English and the Dutch. (3) He further introduced 
industries into France, and endeavoured to promote ,. industry 
and maintain them by means of great protective 
duties. Weaving, stocking-making, glass and lace-making 
were thus planted in France, and though some of them 
subsequently decayed, partly in consequence of the protective 
system, it is unquestionable that Colbert's changes added very 
much to the wealth of France. Other reforms were about the 
same time made in the organization of the army and navy, and 
in the administration of justice. The king was admirably 
served by great statesmen, diplomatists, and soldiers. In 
addition to Colbert there were such men as Turenne and Conde, 
the great soldiers ; Yauban, the great engineer ; Lionne, the 
diplomatist ; Louvois, the organizer of war. 

But before the rule of Louis XI Y. had lasted long these 
peaceful and administrative changes gave place to war, and the 
rest of his reign, which was prolonged for another half century, 
was almost continuously occupied with war or the preparation 
for it. 

In 16G5, King Philip lY. of Spain died, and was succeeded 



2 94 Outlines of European History 

by the half imbecile Charles II., the brother of Louis XIV.' 5 
queen, Maria Theresa. At the time of the marriage Louis XIY. 
The war of liad promised never to assert any claims to the 
devolution. Spanish inheritance which might come to him 
through his wife ; but now, without real justification, he 
claimed a large portion of the Spanish Netherlands. War 
came in 1667, and Spain could make no resistance to the 
armies of France, large, splendidly equipped, and finely led. 
It seemed that all Spanish lands on the northern frontier of 
France would be overrun and occupied by France. But then 
other European powers — England, Holland, and Sweden — 
interfered, and Louis XIV. consented to a peace whereby he 
retained only a strip of the Spanish Netherlands (1668). It 
was not a very important campaign, but it gives us on a smah 
Ecale the characteristic of his whole reign. We see an aggression 
on the territory of his neighbour resisted by a European 
coalition. Aggressions and coalitions followed one another, 
until his reign ended in exhaustion and defeat. 

Holland had taken a leading part in resisting him, and it 
was upon Holland that the next blow fell. Louis XIV. hated 
The Dutch Holland as a republic, a trade rival, and as the 
War. supporter of Protestantism and freedom of thought. 

Almost without the pretence of an excuse, the French armies 
invaded the country in 1672, and at first carried all before them. 
The United Provinces (for that is the correct name of the 
state) humbly bogged for peace, and offered large concessions ; 
but France insisted on terms so humiliating that they had no 
option but to fight on. Her people showed the same heroic 
endurance which they had shown in fighting against Spain. 
They raised AVilHam of Orange (afterwards King William III. 
of England) to be their commander. Allies came to their 
assistance — England, the Empire, and Spain, and at last, in 
1678, France accepted the Peace of Nimwegen, whereby she 
gained Franche Comte upon her eastern frontier at the expense 
of Spain. Her armies had gained great glory during the WT.r, 
but the gains were far smaller than at one time seemed possible. 
Still, Louis was decidedly the first power in Europe, and, after 
the Peace of Nimwegen, he occupied large districts in Alsace (in- 
cluding the important city of Strassburg, 1681) and elsewhere, 



The Ascendency of France under Louis XIV 295 

upon ilie ground that thej legally formed part of the cessions 
made to France by the Peace of Westphalia. Europe would 
have resisted these acquisitions by war, if Europe had been 
strong enough, but the nations were weary of fighting, and 
therefore the indignation with which they regarded these 
French acquisitions did not issue in open conflict. 

Up to this point the reign of Louis XI Y. had been- 
glorious and uniformly successful. But now the time of his 
success, though not of his military glory, was nearly The decline 
over. Each of the subsequent wars which France of France, 
waged during his reign were closed with loss and the admission 
of defeat. 

What were the causes of this change ? It was partly due 
to the fact that the resources of France were being exhausted 
in this continual warfare ; Colbert, before his death, saw many 
of his best reforms sacrificed to the exigencies of the moment. 
It was partly due to the growing suspicion and indignation of 
the European powers against France. They regarded Louis* 
XIY. as a dangerous and aggressive power, against whom it 
was the duty of all European Powers to unite for their common 
safety. But it also stands in close relation to a change which 
was passing over the temper of the king, which made him 
adopt a series of measures of religious persecution, which struck 
a fatal blow against the strength of France. 

The king's early life had been licentious and largely 
devoted to the pursuit of pleasure. But of late Madame de 
Maintenon, the governess of his children, had The king's 
been gaining a great influence over his life and reiigfion. 
opinions. He repented of his early errors and turned, with 
great devotion, to the practice of religion. In 1683, his wife, 
Maria Theresa, died, and soon after he married Madame de 
Maintenon, though the marriage was never officially announced. 
A great change came over the character of the court. It lost its 
old gaiety and frivolity, and became austere and almost puri- 
tanical in character. There was much in the new ideals that 
vas beautiful and noble ; but Catholicism insisted on the 
necessity of uniformity in matters of religion and had never 
accepted the ideas of religious toleration. Thus it came to 
pas^a that the king felt it to be his imperative duty to withdraw 



296 Outlines of European History 

toleration from the Protestants of France ; and in so doing to 
inflicfc a fatal blow upon France herself. 

We have seen how the Huguenots of France had been 
granted religious toleration and equality of civil rights by the 
The with- S^®^^ -^^^^^ ^^ Nantes in 1598. We have seen, too, 
drawaiofthe how Richelicu had taken away the military and 
Edict of legal privileges which were connected with the 

Nantes. g^.^|. . ^^^ j^g j^^^j g^^ |gf^ ^^^ Huguenots their 

civil and religious liberties. They had taken no part in the 
Wars of the Fronde. They were without question an entirely 
loyal people, and they had done more than any other section of 
the population to promote the industrial and commercial pro- 
jects of Colbert. Apart from religious bigotry, there was no 
reason to attack them. 

But the king and his advisers (the great Bossuet must be 
mentioned as one of the chief of these) were determined to 
force them into conformity with the king's religion. For 
many years pressure was brought to bear on them. They were 
excluded from the service of the Crown ; apostasy was rewarded ; 
Protestant " temples " were destroyed on various pretexts. The 
number of professing Protestants was by these means largely 
diminished. At last, in October, 1685, it was determined to 
withdraw the Edict of Nantes altogether, and Protestantism 
ceased to be a legal form of worship in France. The whole 
procedure had been accompanied with calculated cruelty and 
brutal violence ; and for any efforts which the Protestants made 
to avert their fate they were crueUy punished. Thus the unity of 
the Catholic faith had'been restored, but at a terrible cost. The 
oppressed Huguenots were forbidden to leave the country ; but 
the order was eluded and they emigrated by tens of tfiousands. 
They went to England, to Holland, and to Prussia ; and 
thus not only was some of the best blood of France drained 
away from her, but the strength of her Protestant enemies was 
materially increased. 

As we approach the next great war, we must glance at 
Enghsh affairs. They were very critical for Louis XIV. In 
1685, James II. had ascended the throne. He was an out- 
spoken Catholic, and his Catholicism would necessarily bring 
him into alliance with France. But from the first he offended 



The Ascendency of France under Louis XIV 297 

English sentiment, and Louis XIY. saw with alarm the coming 
of the revolution of 1688. Upon the issue of those events it 
would depend whether England was to be the ally Louis xiv. 
or the bitter enerny of France. We know that the and the 
latter was the actual result. James II. fled ; English 
William III. became king of England. His "^evolution, 
strongest political feeling was fear and hatred of the French 
ascendency, and henceforth England was the leading influence 
in all European coalitions against France. 

The result of the English revolution was the outbreak of a 
war between France and what came to be called the *' Grand 
Alliance," consisting of England, Holland, Spaiu, The war of 
the Empire, and Brandenburg (Prussia). It lasted the Grand 
for nine years and was fought out in three main Aihance. 
arenas — in the Netherlands, on the seas, and in Ireland. The 
French troops still showed their former high military qualities, 
and, though Turenne and Conde were both dead, their generals 
still proved themselves the best in Europe. But though France 
could win battles on land, she was in the end defeated at sea 
and in Ireland. Her finances were utterly exhausted and her 
financial system ruined. In 1697 she accepted the Peace of 
Ryswick, by which many French conquests, made in the earlier 
wars, were restored, and the new regime in England was 
recognized. 

France sorely needed rest ; but a greater struggle was now 
impending over her. The weakly, half -imbecile. Spanish king 
was clearly dying. He was childless, and the future -^ht question 
destiny of the Spanish dominions became at once of the 
the most urgent question of European diplomacy. Spanish 
Spain, it is true, was no longer a great power, succession. 
Political and religious absolutism, the exhaustion produced by 
unceasing wars and a wretched financial system, and the burden 
of her colonial empire, had dragged her to a position far below 
that which she had held in the days of Charles Y. and Phihp II. 
But the extent of her territories, both in Europe and out of it, 
was so great that in the hands of a capable ruler, and under a 
better system, she might again become a vast force in European 
politics. 

And now what was to happen to these vast territories ? 



298 Outlines of European History 

Were they to remain united or to be divided ? Who was to 
inherit the whole or the bulk of them ? European diplomacy 
has hardly ever had a more difficult question to face. There 
were three claimants — the royal house of France, the Imperial 
house, and the electoral house of Bavaria. All three stood at 
about the same distance of relationship from the dying king ; 
but while the union between Spain and France or Spain and 
the Empire would wholly upset the European balance of power, 
the union between Bavaria and Spain would cause no such 
serious difficulty. 

First an attempt was made by William III. and Louis XIY. 
to make some arrangement which would avoid the necessity of 
The will of war ; but the death of the Bavarian prince and 
Charles II. the mutual jealousies of the powers made these 
efforts ineffectual. It became a struggle between France and 
the Empire : first a struggle of influence and diplomacy, and 
then one of war. In the earlier diplomatic struggle the French 
gained a complete success. The dying king was induced to 
make a will in favour of PhiHp, the grandson of Louis XIY., 
and after some hesitation, Louis XIV. decided to accept the 
bequest. He could hardly do otherwise. It would bring with 
it, indeed, war, but it would mean the practical union of 
France and Spain, and would bring the greatest gain in 
power and prestige ever made by the French crown. 

So Louis XIV. accepted the bequest, and faced the great 
war. It was the war of the Grand Alliance over again, except 
The war of ^^^^ ^^ow Spain was on the side of France. But 
the Spanish France got little help from Spain. Her finances 
succession. ^qj.q j^ hopeless disorder ; her military strength 
was decayed. She was, it has been said, "like a dead body tied 
to a living one." The alliance, on the other hand, was strong, 
united, resolute. Marlborough, the English commander, was 
perhaps the greatest of all English soldiers ; and Prince 
Eugene, the commander of the imperial troops, worked with 
Marlborough throughout in cordial co-operation. Bavaria, 
irritated against the Empire, was the ally of France, and the 
Bavarian alliance offered France her best chance of success in 
the great struggle. 

The war was prosecuted in five main theatres. There was 



The Ascendency of France under Louis XIV 299 



fighting in the Netherlands, which the allies wrested from the 
grasp of Spain, and through which they tried to penetrate 
into France ; in Italy, where the Austrian armies The theatres 
fought, and in the end successfully, for the Spanish of the war. 
possessions in the Lombard plain ; in Fjance itself, where a 
serious civil war broke out as a result of the cruel suppression 
of the Protestants ; in Bavaria ; and in Spain. Bavaria was 
the critical point in the struggle during the early part of the 
war. It seemed as if a Bavarian and French army might 
dictate peace in Vienna. But the great battle of Blenheim 
(1704) destroyed that hope, and 
drove the French armies entirely 
out of Germany. Battle of 
After the battle of Blenheim. 
Blenheim the fortune of war 
ran continuously against France. 
It was only in Spain that the 
allies met with serious defeats. 
At first the French and Spanish 
armies there were wholly de- 
feated, and Madrid was taken ; 
but then the national spirit of 
Spain rallied wonderfully, and in 
the end, though English troops 
captured and held Gibraltar 
(1704), the allies were driven out 
of the peninsula, and Spain was 
left mistress of her own destiny. 

The war went on until 1713 with cruel loss to France. 
Her finances were utterly exhausted ; her government dis- 
credited ; only her soldiers still showed themselves The Peace 
brave, and, even in defeat, worthy of respect. For of Utrecht, 
some time Louis XIV. begged for peace in vain. But the 
overthrow of the Whigs in England, and the appointment of 
a Tory ministry favourable to peace, withdrew the English 
army from the struggle. Austria fought on a little longer ; 
but in 1713 the long contest ended in the Peace of Utrecht. 

By the Peace of Utrecht the allies gained far less than had 
at one time been well within their grasp. Afttr all their 




The Duke of Marlborough. 

Born, 1650 ; battle of Blenheim, 1704 ; 
died, 1722. 



300 Outlines of European History 

victories the French prince still reigned in Spain as Philip V., 
and France lost little territory. The chief territorial changes 
were these : (1) England (or Great Britain) gained Gibraltar 
from Spain, and Newfoundland and Hudson's Bay from 
France ; (2) Austria gained Milan, Naples, -Sardinia, and the 
Netherlands from Spain ; (3) the Duke of Savoy, who had 
come over to the alliance during the course of the war, gained 
Sicily from Spain. It was an acquisition which, though it 
seemed unlikely at the time, led the Dukes of Savoy ultimately 
to the throne of Italy. 

France thus lost surprisingly little at the peace, but she 
had suffered terribly during the war. Louis XIV. died in 
1715 ; and with his death France sank for more than half a 
century from the position of European predominance which 
she had held for a century and a half. 

HassalVs Louis XIV. (Heroes of the Nations) ; Macaulaifs Essay on 
the War of Spanish Succession. For Spain, see S_pain, its Greatness 
and Decay, by Martin A. S. Hume. 



CHAPTER XIII 

Russia and Prussia 

The Rise of New Powers in the Eighteenth Century 

Brandenburg acquires Prussia i6ii 

Accession of Peter the Great 1682 

John Sobieski, King of Poland, relieves Vienna 1683 
Charles XII. defeats the Russians in the| 

Battle of Narwa j ^'°° 

The Prussian Monarchy 1701 

Accession of Frederick the Great , . . . 1740 
Peace of Hubertsburg 1763 

The Peace of Utrecht did not by any means mark the end of 
the greatness of France. She remained throughout the 
eighteenth century one of the first-rate European powers. 
But her ascendency was over. Other powers struggled with 



Rise of New Powers in the Eighteenth Century 301 

her upon terms of equality or superiority. Since 1G88, Eng- 
land had been her successful rival for commerce and the control 
of the seas, on which commerce then depended. And durino- 
the course of the eighteenth century Russia and Prussia 
assumed that importance in the councils of Europe which they 
have held ever since. 

Whilst they were rising and France was standing still 
there were other countries which were rapidly sinking. The 
great days of Spain as a military power were over ; Sweden and 
her wretched Government repressed the energies Poland, 
of her people. When she appeared again as an important 
military force during the Napoleonic wars, it was due to the 
energy of the people, not to the action of the Government. 
Among the declining powers were also Sweden and Poland. 
We have not found time to say much of either, but both 
had counted at one time among the great powers of Europe. 
We have seen Sweden's glorious and decisive interference 
in the Thirty Years' War ; and in 1683 John Sobieski, 
King of Poland, had come to the relief of Vienna when her 
destruction by the Turks seemed imminent. After the early 
years of the eighteenth century neither country was able to play 
a great part in European politics: The decline of Sweden was 
due to the overstraining of her resources in wars of conquest and 
empire. She was soon again prosperous and progressive, though 
no longer a first-rate military power. Yery different was the 
destiny in store for Poland. Her population was large, her 
territory far larger than that of Prussia ; but she was afflicted 
by almost every evil that can afflict a state. Her frontiers were 
almost indefensible ; her constitution was, under the name of 
an elective monarchy, really in the hands of the wildest, 
most turbulent, and most immoral nobles that Europe knew ; 
the mass of the people was sunk in a degrading serfdom. 
Her great neighbours — Austria, Russia, and Prussia — con- 
stantly interfered in her affairs, and were glad to see her 
weak and misgoverned. Before the end of the century, 
Poland disappeared from the list of independent European 
states. 

Meanwhile new states were appearing among the great 
powers of Europe. Russia, as a European power, dates from 



302 



Outlines of European History 



the early eighteenth century. "We must not go further back 
in the history of Russia than the accession of Peter the 
The rise of Great in 1G82. Modern Russia maybe regarded 
Russia. as his creation. He found Russia barbarous and 

uncivihzed, the power of the monarchy less than that of the 
boyars or nobles ; the country and its resources almost un- 
known to Western Europe. It was Peter the Great who 
introduced the rudiments of European civilization, asserted 

the power of the monarchy 
against all the other elements 
'The work of of Russian Society, 
Peter the founded the new 
Great. capital of St. 

Petersburg, and displayed 
Russia to the world as a 
military power, which had to 
be most seriously reckoned 
with. The man himself was 
a strange mixture of bar- 
barism and civilization : on 
the intellectual side he was 
pure European, on the moral 
side he belonged still to the 
barbarism of early Russia. 
From the first the practical 
achievements of Western 
Europe bad profoundly inter- 
ested him, and a visit which 
he paid in 1697 to England 
and Holland was probably the 
decisive point in his career. He saw how the strength of those two 
countries rested on their navies and their commerce ; and he re- 
turned to Russia determined to introduce there these same forces. 
He^ introduced European customs and European dress ; he 
beat down the power of the nobles, as all strong European 
Russia monarchs had had to do : he made the Church 

reaches the entirely subordinate to the monarchy. Above 
^^^' all, though he added little to the territories of 

Russia, he gained a foothold on the sea both to the north and 




Peter the Great. 

Bom, 16Y2 ; visited Holland and England, 
1697 ; founded St. Petersburg, 1703 ; 
died, 1725. 



Rise of New Powers in the Eighteenth Century 303 

south. Hitherto Russia had touched the sea nowhere. But 
not only did Peter found the new capital of St. Petersburg, 
and thus give Russia her share in the commerce of the Baltic, 
but he also acquired Azov and an opening on to the Black Sea. 
There was profound aristocratic discontent with his work, bub 
it has proved enduring. 

From 1699 onwards he was engaged in a fierce struggle 
with Sweden, whose king, Charles XII., had military ambitions 
and energies not unworthy of those of his ancestor pg^er the 
Gustavus Adolphus. In 1700 he defeated the Great and 
Russians with overwhelming loss at Narwa, and Charles Xll. 
for a time was master of Eastern Germany. But Sweden was 
unequal to the support of his gigantic schemes. In 1709 he 
was defeated at Pultawa, and the power of Sweden collapsed. 
It was a great thing for Russia that this strong rival dis- 
appeared. Peter died in 1725, and a period of confusion and 
reaction followed. But in 1762 the Czarina Catherine II. 
acquired the throne, and she carried on the regime of Peter 
the Great, and began that course of territorial expansion which 
has been the distinguishing feature of Russian history ever 
since. 

Even more important than the growth of Russia was the 
rise of Prussia into the position of a first-rate power. Prussia 
had been originally inhabited by a non-German The rise of 
stock, and it had been conquered in the Middle Prussia. 
Ages by the Teutonic knights. The real origin of the Prussian 
state, however, is to be found, not in Prussia, but in the 
electorate of Brandenburg, which in 1611 acquired Prussia, 
and nearly a hundred years later took from it the royal title. 

The annexed map deserves careful study, for geography 
has been a most important inflaence in the history of Prussia. 
Note how widely separated the territories of Brandenburg are 
in 1740. The state falls, roughly speaking, into three parts, 
situated (1) on the Rhine, (2) on the Elbe and Oder, (3) beyond 
the Yistula. She possessed no geographical advantages ; and it 
seemed little likely that this scattered power would grow into 
the great example of a powerful centralized military monarchy. 

The foundation of the greatness of Prussia was laid by 
Frederick William, "The Great Elector" (1640-1688). Not 



304 Outlines of European History 

only did he win Pomerania and Magdeburg for Prussia, but 
he successfully asserted the power of the central government 
The Great against the aspirations of the nobles ; he en- 
Elector, couraged industry, especially by allowing the 
exiled French Protestants to settle in Berlin ; and he formed 
a large standing army, which was henceforth the chief 
institution of Prussia. Prussia was a small and a very poor 
country. It was only by continuous discipline and by rigid 
honesty and great simphcity of life that she was able to out- 
distance her larger neighbours in the race for power in Central 
Europe. 

In 1701, at the beginning of the war of the Spanish 
succession, the Elector of Brandenburg took the title of King 
BeHnning- ^^ Prussia. The royal title was part of the price 
of the paid to Prussia by the Empire for co-operation in 

Prussian the war. The next Prussian king, Frederick 
monarc y. '^iHiam I., for twcnty-seven years built up a 
strong army and resolutely maintained peace. The Prussian 
army was raised from 38,000 to 83,000, and upon Frederick 
William's death, in 1740, it passed into the hands of Frederick 
II., usually known as Frederick the Great. 

The eighteenth century is sometimes known as the age of 
benevolent despots, and several countries show us reforms 
undertaken and carried out by absolute rulers. We have seen 
how Russia owed her early greatness to Peter the Great ; in 
Austria, a little later, great changes were introduced by the 
Emperor Joseph ; but Frederick the Great is the great instance 
of this feature of the age. His great reputation depends usually 
upon his long wars and the success that he achieved against 
immense odds. His organization of Prussia, and the reforms 
which he introduced into the state, give him an even more 
unquestionable claim to rank as the greatest name among the 
rulers of the eighteenth century. He was much under the 
influence of the contemporary French philosophers, and Voltaire 
had been for some time a resident at his court. He wrote 
French in preference to German, and introduced into Prussia 
ideas which had their chief representatives in Paris. 

Hardly was he on the throne before he plunged into a 
great war. The death of the Emperor Charles YI. made the 



Rise of New Powers in the Eighteenth Century 305 




3o6 Outlines of European History 

whole future of the Austrian dominions exceedingly doubtful, 
for his only heir was his daughter, Maria Theresa ; and, 
Th war though most European powers had promised to 

of the allow her to succeed, the possessions of Austria 

Austrian ^ere so great and so desirable to her neighbours, 
Succession. ^-^^^ -j. ^.^g certain that she would not be able to 
maintain her inheritance without a struggle. Frederick was 
the first to attack. The province of Silesia, lying on both sides 
of the river Oder, adjoined the territories of Prussia. Without 
any excuse he at once invaded and occupied it. A great 
European war (the war of the Austrian Succession) at once 
broke out. 

Frederick was engaged in hostilities, actual or expected, 
from 1740 to 1763. European history had known no wars 
Character which concerned SO wide an area and touched the 
and issues of destinies of so many races and nations. Austria, 
the war. Prussia, France, England, Russia, were all con- 

cerned as leading combatants ; and the whole population of 
the Indian peninsula, and the whole of the continent of 
North America, were influenced in all their future history by 
the results of these wars. There were two main issues in this 
long struggle. First, the future of Prussia : was she to be 
a great power, or was she to be forced back by the ascendency 
of Austria into the position of a small German state ? And 
with the fate of Prussia that of Austria was intimately con- 
nected. Secondly, there was the colonial, c:)mmercia], and 
naval rivalry between England and France. To which of 
them was the Empire of the Seas to fall, and with it the control 
of North America and of India ? So clear and keen was this 
rivalry that in all European combinations, England and France 
are found on opposite sides, though they change their allies in 
the middle of the struggle. 

From 1740 to 1748 the struggle is known as the war of 
the Austrian Succession. During this war Great Britain was 
allied with Austria, while France took the side of Prussia. 
It was entirely indecisive of the two main issues, as we have 
described them. Frederick invaded and occupied Silesia, and 
clung to it in spite of all efforts to dislodge him. His ally, 
the French monarchy, also gained great victories. After 



Rise of New Powers in the Eighteenth Century 307 

suffericg an unimportant defeat at the hands of the British 
and Hanoverians in 1743, the French army completely defeated 
the British and allied forces at Fontenoy in 1745, and occu- 
pied the whole of the Austrian Netherlands and Holland. 
Meanwhile, there was fighting at sea and in India and America, 
but the contest there was quite indecisive. Exhaustion and 
disagreement among the allies brought the war to an end by 
the Peace of Aix la Chapelle (1748). Frederick was recognized 
as the possessor of Silesia, but in all other important respects 
the conditions were restored as before the war. There was a 
general feeling that no permanent peace had been reached — 
only a truce during which the belligerents might prepare for 
a further encounter. 

Before the fighting was renewed eight years later, there 
had been a great change in the diplomatic relations of Europe. 
Since the days of Charles Y., France had almost xhe diplo- 
invariably been opposed to Austria in any Euro- matic revo- 
pean quarrel ; but now France was induced to lotion, 
desert Frederick and enter into alliance with Austria. It was 
a change more important than the winning and losing of many 
battles. The French Government, as we shall see in the next 
chapter, was utterly weak and bad at this time ; her statesmen 
and diplomatists lacked entirely the skill and insight which 
had distinguished them in the days of Louis XIV. Their 
wisest course would have been to keep out of the European 
war, and concentrate the efforts of France upon the maritime 
and colonial struggle. The new alliance exposed France to 
the blows of Prussia under Frederick, and England under 
Pitt. She lost control of the seas and all chance of dominion 
in Canada and India ; and in Europe she suffered some 
of the most ruinous defeats that are to be found in all her 
history. 

Thus there came in 1756 what is known as the " Seven 
Years' War." England joined Prussia, while on the other 
side were ranged Austria, France, Russia, and The Seven 
Saxony. Tlie war opened favourably for Austria Years' War. 
and France. Frederick was checked. Great Britain received 
blow upon blow. It seemed to many that her day was over, 
and that even at sea she was no longer equal to a struggle 



3o8 Outlines of European History 

with France. Then there came an amazing change. Pitt 
(afterwards the Earl of Chatham) came to power in England, 
and he and Frederick, in hearty co-operation, turned the tide 
of battle. Frederick, indeed, had to struggle during the whole 
of the war for very existence, and it was only his unquench- 
able energy and great military skill which saved Prussia from 
annihilation. He found the Eussian armies especially formid- 
able, but he survived in the end, and inflicted on Austria, 
Russia, and France defeats of the most overwhelming kind ; 
but even these would not have saved him if a change upon the 
Eussian throne had not converted Eussia from a bitter oppo- 
nent into an ally. Great Britain meanwhile was gaining a 
series of wonderful victories in all parts of the world. British 
and Hanoverian armies, under a Prussian commander, crushed 
the French armies in the north of Germany ; and in Canada, 
India, and at sea Great Britain gained victories such as find 
few parallels in her military annals. The Earl of Chatham fell 
from power with the accession of George III., and the British 
abandoned the Prussian alliance ; but it was as a conqueror. 
The Peaces though exhausted, that Frederick brought the war 
of Paris and to an end in 1763. The terms of the European 
Hubertsburg-. settlement were laid down in the Peace of Paris 
and that of Hubertsburg. France abandoned her claims to 
Canada and India ; the destinies of both countries were 
henceforth to be knit up with that of Great Britain. But it 
is Prussia that we are chiefly concerned with just now. 
Maria Theresa, the proud Austrian Empress, definitely ceded 
Silesia to the Prussian crown. But Prussia had gained much 
more than that important province. Her reputation was 
immensely enhanced. She had given to Europe an example of 
efficient and economical government which made men think 
that a new type of state had arisen. Nothing seemed impos- 
sible to Prussia, and though future events were to show that 
Prussia also had her weak sides and could suffer defeat and 
disaster, she was for the time decidedly the first military power 
in Europe. 

Carlyle's Frederick the Great; Reddaway's FredericTi the Great 
(Heroes of the Nations) ; Charles XII., by B. NesbU Bain (Heroes of 
the Nations) ; Peter the Great, by Wasilewski. 



The coming of the French Revolution 309 



CHAPTER XIV 

The coming of the French Revolution 

Expulsion of Jesuits from France . . 1764 

Abolition of Parlements 1771 

Voltaire 1694-1778 

Rousseau 1712-1778 

After 1715 a great change passed over the government of 

France. There was no one to take the place of " the Great 

Monarch," Louis XIV. His successor was his „ ^. 

' T- . -^^^r 1 •. 1 -n Reaction 

great-grandson, Louis XV., who was quite a child under the 

and incapable for many years of ruling France. Reg:ency of 

The Duke of Orleans was made regent, and he *?^ ^"^^ °^ 

altered the policy of France at almost every point. 

Peace with England instead of war ; favour shown to the 

great nobles ; the elements of self-government encouraged ; 

the financial system of France overturned ;— such were some of 

the features of the new regime. As Louis XV. came to take a 

share in the government of France, he gave the chief post in 

the ministry to his old tutor, Cardinal Fleury ; and we may 

note that a war which began in 1733, and had for its central 

object the question of the Polish succession, ended in 1735 in 

the acquisition by France of Lorraine. This district had for 

some time past been effectively in her possession, but it was 

now definitely ceded to the French crown. It was the last 

acquisition of the French monarchy before the storm of the 

Revelation fell upon it. 

Louis XV. at first seemed to have ambition and some energy ; 

but later he became self-indulgent, licentious, and torpid beyond 

the measure of any other king in the history of . 

Western Europe. He would not allow any First 

Minister to take into his hands the government of France ; 

and, as he was himself incapable of it, the result was that 

France had no effective government at all. The chief influence 

in the state lay with his mistresses, the chief of whom were 



3IO Outlines of European History 

Madame de Pompadour for the central part of his reign, and 
Madame Dubarri for the latter part. The chief interest of 
the reign is to see how the strength of the old monarchy 
rapidly declined ; how opposition to the crown arose ; how 
the nation became conscious of its evils, and confident of the 
possibility of a bright future. Thus the Revolution was 
prepared. 

Among the influences that broke the strength of the French 
monarchy, military failure played an important part. It was 
largely as successful leaders in war that the kings 
of France in ^f France had acquired absolute power. In the 
the wars of reign of Louis XV., after the first success in 
the eighteenth Lorraine, of which we have already spoken, there 
cen ury. ^^^^ ^ ^^^^^ period of warfare, ending in terrible 

disaster. During the war of the Austrian succession, indeed, 
the French armies gained victories, and succeeded in occupying 
Belgium and Holland, which Louis XIY. had so often tried 
in vain to conquer. But, upon the conclusion of peace, 
diplomacy succeeded in holding nothing of what arms had 
won. During the Seven Years' "War, France, after an early 
gleam of success, experienced nothing but disaster by land and 
by sea, in Europe and abroad. The Prussian king destroyed 
the French army at Eossbach ; the English fleets drove the 
French entirely from the seas ; Canada and India w^ere lost. 
The humiliation of France inevitably destroyed much of the 
reverence and unquestioning loyalty that Frenchmen had 
formerly felt for the monarchy. 

Popular opposition began to show itself. France was 
almost entirely without representative institutions. The Statcs- 
Theriseof General had not been called since 1614; the 
opposition. Provincial Estates had either been destroyed or 
deprived of any real power. The only channel through which 
any constitutional opposition could be offered to the action of 
the Government was the Parlement of Paris. That was, as we 
have seen, a body of lawyers and advocates, existing almost 
entirely for judicial purposes. But they had the right of 
registering the king's edicts, and no edict was binding on the 
people until it was so registered. And the Parlement claimed 
that they had not only the right to register, but also to refuse 



The coming of the French Revolution 311 

reo^istration, and to criticise the royal edicts that were sent 
down to them. This was a very narrow channel for public 
opinion to express itself through, but it was the only constitu- 
tional one left, and it became of great importance during the 
reism of Louis XV. The members of the Parlement wrangled 
with the king about many subjects, but chiefly about the edict 
which had been passed against the religious body called the 
Jansenists ; about the heavy taxes which had been imposed in 
time of war and were not relaxed in time of peace. The 
struggle was a long and intricate one, and the Parlement was 
for a time very popular in Paris ; but in the end victory rested 
with the king. In 1771 the Parlement was abolished, and a 
different arrangement was made for the highest courts of 
justice in France. 

But before the Parlement fell it had gained one great 
victory over the monarchy : it had secm^ed the abolition of the 
Jesuit order in France. "\Ye have seen with what The fall of 
success the Jesuits had fought against Protestantism the Jesuits, 
dm'ing the age of the Reformation. Since the Eeformation 
struggle had practically ended in a drawn battle, the Jesuit 
order had somewhat changed in character. It had engaged 
with great success in foreign missions, and it had in Catholic 
countries secured great influence over the councils of kings. 
The Parlement of Paris had an almost traditional antipathy to 
the Jesuits, and lost no opportunity of curbing their powers 
and criticising their action. Now the failure of a commercial 
speculation, in which the Jesuits had engaged, brought the order 
before the Parlement of Paris. It was decided to examine the 
whole principles and character of the order. The king in vain 
tried to take the process out of the hands of the Parlement. 
The Parlement persisted ; declared that the principles of the 
Jesuits were contrary to the laws of France ; and, as the Jesuits 
would admit of no compromise, secured their expulsion from 
France in 1764. Similar movements were going on in various 
countries of Europe. They were expelled from Portugal, Spain, 
Parma, Naples, Savoy, Austria. At last, in 1773, the order was 
dissolved by a Papal Bull. But it was too valuable to the 
Church to be utterly destroyed. The order was restored in 
1811. 



312 Outlines of European History 

The action of Parlement and the suppression of the Jesuits 
were signs of the growing weakness of the Crown 
lecUiSmove- ^^^ ^^^ fermentation of public opinion. But a 
ment of the greater movement was meanwhile taking place in 
eighteenth ^j^g minds of men, which undermined loyalty and 
cen ury. prepared the way for revolution. 

The intellectual movement of the eighteenth century was 
not confined to France. It was common to the whole European 
world, and marked a change in the opinions and convictions 
of men equal to what had taken place in the period of the 
Reformation. 

The general features of this intellectual movement are not 
difficult to seize. It was hostile to estabhshed opinions in 
Its charac- Church and State. It was sceptical, critical, and 
teristics. negative ; that is to say, it was more definite in 

denouncing the basis upon which the old society had rested 
than in suggesting what new foundations should be laid. It 
rejected, or seemed to reject, the teaching and experience of 
the past. It was especially contemptuous of the Middle Ages, 
and spoke of them as the age of superstition, while the present 
was the age of reason. But, while it rejected the Middle 
Ages, it turned to the history of Greece and Rome with admiring 
enthusiasm ; and classical phrases, examples, and ideas had a 
great influence on the thinkers who preceded the French 
Revolution. But what most distinguished the thought of the 
eighteenth century, and gave to it its most beneficent influence, 
was its assertion of humanity. Not merely does it protest 
against cruelty, against judicial torture, and against religious 
persecution ; but it brings all institutions, whether religious or 
pohtical, and all creeds, philosophical and religious, to the test 
of humanity. If they serve human ends they are good ; if not 
they are evil, however well supported they may be by tradition. 

The chief names among the French philosophers were 
Diderot, Montesquieu, Yoltaire, and Rousseau. The last two 
Voltaire and were the most immediately influential, though 
Rousseau. Montesquieu and Diderot were deeper thinkers. 
Yoltaire was the great opponent of the claims and powers of 
Catholicism. He criticised its doctrines and denounced its 
influence. Especially he made himself the determined champion 



The coming of the French Revolution 313 

of religious toleration, and succeeded in putting an end to some 
of the worst excesses of religious persecution. In politics lie was 
far from being a revolutionary thinker. He had seen the great 
reforms introduced into Prussia by Frederick the Great, and 

he would have liked to 

have seen reforms in- 
troduced into France 
by a reforming king. 
Rousseau was a very 
different nature from 
Voltaire ; but he had 
in the end even more 
influence on public 
opinion and the course 
of events. He was 
passionate and emo- 
tional ; he had none of 
the cold, clear logic of 
Voltaire. He appealed 
to men's feelings rather 
than their reason ; and 
France came to be pene- 
trated by the passion 
which he inspired, and 
embraced his ideas with 
hot enthusiasm. He 
wrote on education, 
on religion, and on 
politics ; and all his 
ideas are connected 
and aim at the same 
goal. His main doc- 
trines were the inalien- 
able sovereignty of the 

people ; the superiority of feeling over thought ; the superiority 
of the natural uncivilized man over man as formed by civilized 
and conventional societies. As men read his works they came 
to despise the society in which they lived, to believe in the possi- 
bility of an infinitely better one, and to determine to realize it. 



Head of Voltaire (by Houdon) in the 
Louvre, Paris. 

Bora, 1694 ; visited England, 1724 ; resided in 
Prussia, il5Q-ll53 ; died, 17T8. 



314 Outlines of European History 

Thus the Government of France, after the middle of the 
eighteenth century, was fallen into weakness and unpopularity ; 
new ideas were spreading and inciting to wide-sweeping 
changes. But these would not have been able to produce a 
great revolution if the condition of the people had not made 
a change really desirable. It is to the condition of the people 
that we must now turn. ' 

It is a mistake to imagine that the French Revolution was 
caused by the misery of the people, or that the condition of 
The ancient *^^ people was worse than in any other country, 
regime in It is impossible to make accurate comparisons 
France. between the conditions of different countries with- 

out elaborate statistics ; but it is certain that the condition of 
Poland and of many German states was far worse than that of 
France. It is certain, too, that the condition of France had 
improved during the half century that preceded the Revolution. 
But the burdens upon the people of France were very heavy ; 
the Government was really oppressive ; and above all, men's 
eyes were opened at last to the possibility of improvement. 

The grievances of the population of the towns lay in the 
exclusiveness and oppression of the Government ; in the action 
of the trades guilds in harassing and repressing industry ; 
in the administration of the law ; and the poverty that was the 
result of all these. It is the country districts that reveal to us 
most clearly the evils of the ancient regime in France. For in 
the beginning of the French Revolution the peasantry, usually 
so conservative an element in the State, were eager for change 
and ready to gain it by revolution. We shall understand 
this if we realize their position. 

Feudalism, as a system of government, had been completely 
destroyed in France. The nobles had far less power than in 
Condition of England, and were in consequence many of them 
the French at first ready to welcome the Revolution. But 
peasantry. though feudalism was dead as a pohtical system, 
many of its financial burdens remained. The peasantry had 
to pay, in addition to heavy taxation for state purposes, heavy 
feudal dues which had lost all meaning and justification. The 
peasant who owned his own land (and a great proportion of 
the French peasants before the Revolution were proprietors) 



The coming of the French Revolution 315 

had to pay a large number of feudal dues. He must pay toll 
as he passed along roads or crossed rivers ; he must pay dues 
when he threshed his corn or pressed his grapes ; he must pay 
in many instances a certain proportion of the produce of his 
land (land which was his own) to a feudal lord with whom he 
never came into contact. 

Then, in addition to the feudal dues, there were the State 
taxes ; and these were not only exceedingly burdensome, but 
irritating and ruinous in their workinsr, and, 
above all, unjust in their incidence. For the 
weight of the taxes of France fell upon the so-called un- 
privileged classes, and chiefly upon the peasantry of the country 
districts. The privileged classes were to a very large extent 
exempt ; and the privileged classes included the clergy, the 
nobility, and the court, and many of the wealthy men of the 
middle class who had bought patents of nobility. It was there- 
fore the poorest who paid the taxes, wliile the richest were to a 
large extent exempt. The chief were the galelle^ the corvee, and 
the taille. The gahelle was a State monopoly of salt, and not 
only was the price of the salt fixed by the State, but the peasant 
was forced to buy a certain amount from the State, and even 
then the use of the salt was surrounded by irritating restrictions. 
Nothing in the old system was more, irritating than this tax. 
The prices varied enormously from district to district. Salt 
smuggling was fiercely punished, and a large number of persons 
were annually imprisoned for the offence. The corvee was a 
system of forced labour. It was an irritating rather than a 
heavy burden, and had at one time been far heavier than it 
was on the eve of the Revolution. It was a system whereby 
the peasant was obliged to give a certain number of days' 
labour to the State without pay. But of all the taxes that fell 
upon the peasantry, the taUle was the heaviest and the most 
detested. It was a tax on land and houses, equitable in its 
main character, but entirely unjust in its incidence, and irri- 
tating in the way in which it was levied. The total amount 
each year was determined by the central Government, and it 
was assessed upon the various districts and upon individuals 
by Government agents according to what they thought the 
district or individual could bear. It repressed, therefore, all 



3i6 Outlines of European History 

appearance of comfort or well-being ; for if the peasant seemed 
to be improving his condition, the tax was sure to be raised. 

We have said that misery and poverty were not the sole or 
essential causes of the Revolution ; but the burdens on the 
peasantry were very heavy. In some districts the peasant paid 
more than half of his earnings in taxes. The possibility of 
shaking off the feudal dues and abolishing or alleviating the 
galelle and the taille turned the long-suffering peasant at the 
beginning of the Revolution into an ardent revolutionist. 

The distinctive feature of France before the Reformation 
was not the cruelty and oppressiveness of the social system, 
which it shared with most other countries. Rather 
ummary. ^^^ characteristic is extreme instability. No one 
was loyal to the old order. The nobles, the middle class, even 
the clergy desired great modifications ; the people at large 
found it intolerably burdensome. And those who had imbibed 
the new ideas of Yoltaire and Rousseau, regarded it as unjust, 
and believed that it barred the way to a state of society which 
should know neither poverty, nor oppression, nor crime. 
Without these enthusiastic hopes the revolution would not 
have come, or, if it had come, it would have been something 
very different from what it actually was. 

In addition to the ordinary histories of France, see Taine's Ancient 
Regime; de Tocqueville's Causes of the French Bevolution ; Morley's 
Lives of Voltaire and Bousseau. 



CHAPTER XV 
The French Revolution 

Turcot dismissed 1776 

States- General assemble 1789 

First Constitution completed .... Sept. 1791 
Execution of King Louis XVI. . . . Jan. 1793 

Fall of Robespierre 1794 

Establishment of the Directory 1795 

Louis XV. died in 1774, and was succeeded by his grandson, 
Louis XVI. He was married to Marie Antoinette, daughter of 
Maria Theresa, the Austrian empress. The antipathy between 



The French Revolution 317 

France and Austria was of long standing, and thronghont her 
life her Austrian origin was one of the causes of the un- 
popularity of the queen. 

Louis XYI. was popular at his accession. He had taken 
no part in the follies and vices of the last reign, and his first 
acts showed that its policy would not be main- Louis XVI. 
tained. The Parlements were recalled, and a andTurgot. 
reforming ministry was appointed. Turgot was the great 
influence in this first ministry, and he is one of the noblest 
and most pathetic figures of the eighteenth century. He was 
loyal to the Crown, but convinced of the necessity of great 
reforms. He hoped to abolish financial privilege, to strike off 
all restraints from industry, and to lay the foundations of self- 
government. Had he been firmly supported by the king, the 
revolution might have been avoided ; but, though Louis XYI. 
sympathized with his great minister, he had not strength of 
will to maintain him in office against aristocratic and court 
opposition. He was dismissed in 1776. 

From the beginning of the reign, the financial question was 
a pressing difficulty. The expenses of the recent wars and bad 
financial methods had brought France to the verge The finances 
of bankruptcy. The large immunity of the privi- of France, 
leged classes from taxation was really at the root of the evil, 
but all efforts that were made to destroy this immunity failed 
until the revolution came. After Turgot's dismissal, Necker 
a Protestant banker from Geneva, controlled the finances. 
By economy and financial skill, he improved the situation of 
France, but then there came upon France another great war — ■ 
the war which she waged in 1776 as an ally of the United 
States of America against England. It was a war full of glory 
for France. Her old rival was defeated and humiliated, and 
the prowess of France, both on sea and land, had contributed 
very largely to this result. And yet this triumph did nothing 
to strengthen the French Government. Rather it weakened 
it, for the great expense of the war made the financial 
situation still more hopeles?, and the democratic and repub- 
lican principles of the United States, taken in connection with 
the vast success which they had achieved, increased the 
faith of Frenchmen in those ideas of liberty, equality, and 



3i8 Outlines of European History 

self-government, wliicli they had derived from the writings of 
their philosophers. 

For some years after this, the Government still tried various 
financial expedients, but always without success. Meanwhile, 
Calling- of ^^^ convictiou was growing strong in all classes of 
the states- Frenchmen that only in self-government could any 
General. ^^^1 solution of the difficulties be found. At last, 
the king yielded to the general demand, and called together 
the States-General of France for May, 1789. 

No meeting of the States-General had been held since 
1G14, and their organization and procedure were uncertain. 
It was decided that the clergy and nobility should be repre- 
sented by three hundred members, whilst the third estate, or 
Commons, had six hundred representatives. The king opened 
the sessions on the 5th May, 1789. The enthusiasm was 
intense, and the belief that a new and better era was beginning 
almost universal. It was soon found, however, that grave diffi- 
culties were before the States-General. The first question was 
as to the method of procedure. The Commons demanded that 
all three orders should deliberate and vote together, in which 
case the friends of reform would undoubtedly command a large 
majority. The privileged classes demanded that the three orders 
should sit separately, and that a majority of orders should be 
required for the passing of any measure. The whole future 
depended upon the decision of this question. The king, 
after long hesitation, decided for separate chambers, but the 
Commons, led by such men as Mirabeau and the Abbe Sieycs, 
outmanoeuvred him. The vast majority of Frenchmen were 
with them, and by the end of June all the deputies met, 
dehberated and voted in a single chamber, and took the title 
of the National Assembly. 

If, then, the National Assembly remained in power great re- 
forms were certain. The king (or the king's advisers, for the king 
The fall of himself was weak of will and incapable of resolute 
the Bastille, action) determined to crush the popular party by 
July 14, 1789. force. But when troops began to be moved towards 
Paris for that purpose, the great city rose in violent revolt ; the 
fortress of the Bastille fell into the hands of the insurgents, 
and the king, shrinking from further bloodshed, yielded and 



The French Revolution 



319 



professed approyal of what had been done. It was a great victory 
for the popular cause. An even greater soon followed. There 
were rumours that the king was again preparing to strike, and 
on the 5th October a great crowd marched out from Paris, 
forced its way into the palace of Versailles, and after receiving 
armed reinforcements, compelled the king to abandon the great 







lm>^s^. 



The Bastille. 

Section of an engraved map of 1734, showing the Bastille, the Rue Saint Artoine, leading 
towards the Hotel de Ville, and, outside the Saint Antoine gate, the Faubourg, where 
many of the revolutionary armies were recruited. The attack on the Bastille was 
made from the courtyards at the right. 



palace of "Versailles and come to live in the palace of the 
Tuileries in the centre of Paris. Henceforth the king was 
jealously guarded and every movement watched. He was 
practically a prisoner in the hands of his people. 

The National Assembly now declared that its aim was to 
draw up a constitution for France, and is henceforth known as 
th3 Constituent Assembly. It worked eagerly at its new task ; 



320 Outlines of European History 

closely limiting the powers of the king ; bringing the Church 
strictly under the control of the State ; introducing radical 
The Con- changes in the administration of justice, giving, 
stituent in fact, to France a new political system. In 

Assembly. June, 1791, came a sudden interruption. The 
king fled from Paris. He felt himself a prisoner ; he 
disliked the new Constitution, especially in what concerned 
religion ; and he hoped to place himself under the protection 
of his armies, and revise the Constitution. But he was arrested 
before he could reach his armies, and was taken back igno- 
miniously to Paris. It was clear, henceforth, that he was no 
free agent. When in September, 1791, the Constitution was 
completed and offered to him, he accepted it, and promised to 
rule according to it. With the king's acceptance the first 
phase of the Revolution was over, and many thought that the 
Kevolution was over altogether. 

The new Assembly that was to govern France, the Legis- 
lative Assembly, soon fell into three clearly defined parties. 
The new W ^^® Constitutionalists, who desired to maintain 
legislative the constitution of 1791 ; (2) the Grirondists, who 
assembly. -^ere supported chiefly by the middle class and 
the provinces, who desired to push the Kevolution further still, 
and were at heart republicans ; (3) the Jacobins, who repre- 
sented the cities, and especially Paris, and found their support 
in the poorer strata of the population. At first the Jacobins 
worked with the Girondists ; later, a wide division appeared 
between them. The Jacobins were the most violent, the most 
resolute, and the most capable of the extreme Eevolutionists. 

Now there came into the Revolution an influence which 

profoundly modified its whole course. In April, 1792, France 

. ^ went to war with the Emperor ; Prussia soon joined 

oreign war. ^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ ^ ^^^ ^^ ^^^ beginning of the next year 

Great Britain, Holland, and Spain joined the coalition against 
France. From this time, until the battle of Waterloo, in 1815, 
France was almost always fighting against a coalition of the chief 
powers in Europe, and, until 1812, she fought with success. 
We need not examine in detail the causes of the w^ar. The 
French politicians were far from blameless ; but the war was 
essentially a conflict between the principles of the Revolution 



The French Revolution 321 

and tbe principles of the old European order ; the republican 
idea went to war with the ideas of monarchy and feudalism. 

An immediate result of the foreign war was the overthrow 
of the monarchy in France. Louis XYI. was believed to be 
in sympathy with the enemies of France, and the ^j^^ ^^g^., 
early failures of the French armies were ascribed throw of the 
to him. On August 10, 1792, an armed crowd French 
stormed the Tuileries palace ; the king took refuge °"^^^ ^* 
with the Legislative Assembly ; the Assembly was dissolved, 
and a new body elected by manhood suffrage, and called the 
Convention, was elected to decide upon the future government 
of France. Meantime the king was suspended from his functions. 
Danton, Kobespierre, and Marat, the leaders of the Jacobins, 
were the chief movers in these great events. The excitement in 
Paris was extreme. There were rumours of plots on behalf of 
the king, and at the beginning of September, while the elections 
to "the Convention were in progress, a large number of persons, 
who had been imprisoned on suspicion of anti-revolutionary 
aims, were massacred with only the mockery of a trial. Thus 
the extreme party among the Revolutionists triumphed in Paris. 
Danton and Eobespierre were masters of the situation. 

The armies of Austria and Prussia meanwhile were 
advancing on Paris, and they seemed at first invincible. 
They advanced up to and beyond the frontiers The French 
of France ; fortress after fortress fell into their victory at 
hands. But then, on September 20, 1792, they Valmy. 
were met at Yalmy in the Argonnes by Dumouriez, and there 
the Prussian advance was checked. The battle of Yalmy has 
been called one of the decisive battles of the world because it 
saved the French Republic from extinction ; but in itself it 
was a very small affair, and it was made decisive by the 
diplomacy that followed and the quarrels of the allies rather 
than by the actual fighting. 

But the battle of Yalmy saved the Revolution, which could 
now address itself to the task of political reconstruction. The 
Republic had been declared in September, 1792. 
The king was brought to trial for treason against ^^^^L^'^" °^ 
the nation, and was executed in January, 1793. 

Henceforth the development of the internal affairs of 

y 



322 Outlines of European History 

France and the struggle against the European coalition are 
of almost equal importance, and the two stand in the most 
-,, „ . intimate connection. Within the borders of 

of Terror ; France there was established what is usually known 
its chief as the Reign of Terror, and at and beyond the 

features. frontiers the armies of France were continually 

struggling with the Austrian, Prussian, British, Dutch, and 
Spanish armies. If the Reign of Terror was not caused by 
the foreign war, at least it could not have existed without it. 
The Jacobins, who now controlled the Grovernment, were a 
minority in France ; they could not rule by constitutional 
means, for if they appealed to the votes of France they would 
certainly have been thrust from power. They must rule, 
therefore, if at all, by a display of force and violence which 
should overawe their opponents ; they justified their actions 
to themselves by the plea that they were saving France from 
her internal and external enemies ; and France was the less 
willing to rise against their rule because of the foreign war 
and the need for concentrated action to meet it. 

The great instrument of the Reign of Terror was the Com- 
mittee of Public Safety — a body of twelve men, in which first 
Institution of Danton, and afterwards Robespierre, had the chief 
the Reign of influence. This committee exercised complete 
Terror. control over both the internal and external affairs 

of France, and all other agencies of government sank into 
subordination to them. A special tribunal was appointed to 
try all political offenders, and the supposed enemies of the 
Revolution and the Jacobins were sent before this tribunal in 
increasing numbers, and, if found guilty, guillotined upon the 
great central square of Paris. The number of victims reached 
their highest figure after Danton had left the committee, and 
while Robespierre was supreme in it. In 1794, as many as 
eight hundred and thirty-five persons were guillotined in one 
month. Among the victims were the Queen Marie Antoinette, 
and many who had played a leading part in the early victories 
of the Revolution, but were now branded as Moderates. 
The Girondist party was entirely crushed by the Jacobin 
committee. 

But all through the Terror the Jacobins were busy with 



The French Revolution 



323 



the reorganization of France. Thej produced a new constitu- 
tion, though it was never actually set to work ; they in- 
troduced a new and decimal system of weights jacobin 
and measures. A new calendar was adopted, reorganiza- 
The weeks and months were re-arranged and re- ^^°°- 
named, and a new Eepublican era, beginning with September, 
1792 (the declaration of the Repubhc), was to replace the 
Christian era. Christianity 
was " abolished " in Paris, and 
a new religion was adopted 
— first the worship of Reason, 
and then the worship of 
" The Supreme Being." The 
latter system was introduced 
by Robespierre, and reflects 
closely the ideas of Eousseau. 
Amid much that was retro- 
grade and oppressive there 
was much in the work of 
the Jacobins which became a 
permanent part of the life 
and ideas of France. 

Meanwhile the war as- 
sumed even greater propor- 
tions. In addition to the vast 
European coahtion, there was 
fierce civil war in France 
herself. It seems at first 
sight miraculous that France 
should have survived. She 
was saved firstly by the fierce 

energy of the Jacobins. Great armies were collected by the 
energy of Danton, and were directed by the wisdom of Carnot. 
The troops were for the most part inspired by an prench 
eager enthusiasm for the Revolution, and their success in 
commanders flung them upon the enemy with a the foreign 
disregard for the established rules of warfare and ^^' 
a savage energy which often defeated the methodical procedure 
of the enemy. But the defeat of the coalition was not merely 




Robespierre. 

Bom, 1758; member of the States-General, 
1789 ; entered the Committee of Public 
Safety, July, 1793 ; guillotined, July, 
1794. 



324 Outlines of European History 

due to the energy of the Committee of Public Safety and the 
valour of the soldiers of the Eepublic. The coalition was 
divided by internal disputes and differences of aim. England, 
Prussia and Austria had each their own selfish objects which 
prevented the adoption of a general plan of campaign. And, 
The par- more important than all, the attention of Prussia 
titionof and Austria was, after 1792, directed rather to 

Poland. Poland than to France. For Poland, once a great 

power, and still large and populous, was breaking in pieces. A 
degrading social system, and a constitution which made good 
government impossible, made the land a helpless prey to her 
neighbours. In 1772, Eussia, Prussia and Austria, had seized 
each a portion of the unhappy country. Now, in 1793, another 
partition was clearly impending ; and the coming division of 
the spoil awoke in the three great powers the darkest 
suspicions and the fiercest jealousies. As a result, neither 
Austria nor Prussia threw themselves with any energy into the 
French War ; and this it was which, more than anything else, 
saved the French Eepublic from destruction. By the end of 
1793 the French armies were everywhere victorious ; soon 
Belgium and Holland were overrun by them, and they began 
to invade Germany beyond the Ehine. 

As the military danger passed away, all justification of the 
methods of the Terror disappeared. But, in 1794, the Terror 
The fall of was more terrible than ever, and the victims of 
Robespierre, the guillotine more numerous. However, the 
Jacobins had begun to quarrel fiercely among themselves, and 
it was their quarrels which brought the Terror to an end. 
Danton, the greatest and the noblest of the Jacobins, was 
no longer in the front of his party. He had been willing to 
use violence for an object, but that object had been reached ; 
France was saved ; and now he pleaded for the adoption of 
more merciful methods. Eobespierre stood at the head of 
the extreme Terrorist party. He succeeded in sending 
Danton to the guillotine, and in defeating all his rivals. 
But, though he became practically dictator of France, his 
power had no foundation, and he had no ability to maintain 
it. He struck his opponents down with a relentless hand ; 
but the survivors united against him, and in the rising of 



The Napoleonic Era 325 

Thermidor (July, 1794), Robespierre was overthrown and 
guillotined. 

After his fall the Terror soon ended. The Committee of 
Public Safety ceased to rule. The Convention resumed some- 
thing of its constitutional powers. A new con- xhe end of 
stitution (the Constitution of the Year III.) was the Reign of 
drawn up in 1795. France was henceforward to Terror, 
be governed by a legislative body consisting of an upper and 
a lower house, and at the head of the Government there was to 
be a Directory, or administrative committee, of five persons. 
The new constitution displeased many parties, and there was a 
rising against it (October, 1795), but the rising, though at 
one time dangerous, was suppressed through the action of 
Napoleon Bonaparte ; and from this date the earlier ideals of 
the Revolution are overshadowed, and finally destroyed, by a 
military dictatorship. 

The French Revolution, by Mrs. S. B. Gardiner ; The Eevolutionary 
and Napoleonic Era, by J. H. Eose ; CarlyWs French Bevolution ; 
Willerfs Life of Mirabeau (Foreign Statesmen) ; Belloc's Life of Danton ; 
Belloc's Life of Bobespierre. 



CHAPTER XVI 
The Napoleonic Era 

Napoleon at Toulon 1793 

Napoleon in Italy 1796 

Revolution of Brumaire 1799 

Peace of Amiens 1802 

Napoleon Emperor 1804 

Battle of Austerlitz 1805 

Peace of Tilsit 1807 

Napoleon's Russian Campaign 1812 

Battle of Waterloo 1815 

The French Revolution had begun with aspirations towards 
universal peace and the declaration of human brotherhood. 
But when it had run its course for three years, it fell, as we 
have seen, into a great European war, and at the end of ten 



326 



Outlines of European History 



years led to the establishment of the rule of a great soldier. 
But long before 1799, when Napoleon Bonaparte became 
The rise of clearly master of France, power and influence 
the power of had moved from the legislators of France to the 
the army. soldiers, and military rule was seen by many to be 
impending. Many great revolutions in history have ended in 
the establishment of some form of military rule, as the Roman 
Revolution ended in the establishment of the empire by Julius 
Caesar, and the English Revolution in the military dictatorship 
of Cromwell. An era of violence and lawlessness makes the 

need of order more keenly 
felt, and men acquiesce in 
the destruction of liberty, 
provided anarchy is sup- 
pressed. During the later 
stages of the French Revolu- 
tion the politicians of Paris 
were more and more dis- 
credited, while men began 
to look with enthusiasm on 
the great soldiers who guided 
the armies of France to un- 
exampled successes. 

Napoleon Bonaparte was 
by birth a Corsican, but 
in 1768 Corsica had been 
annexed to France, and he 
was thus born as a subject 
of the French crown. He was destined by his parents for a 
military career, and went through the usual training in the 
The rise of military academies of France. He sympathized at 
Napoleon. first Very keenly with the ideas of the Revolution, 
and took a prominent part in the siege of Toulon (December, 
1793), when the British and allies were driven from that city, 
which they had occupied. But his first opportunity for distinc- 
tion of an important kind came in October, 1795, when a rising 
of the people of Paris against the Convention and the new consti- 
tution was quelled chiefly by his energy. In recognition of his 
services he was soon appoiuted to important military command. 




Napoleon Bonaparte. 
Bom, 1769; died, 1821. 



The Napoleonic Era 327 

The new Government of the Directory was at war with a 
strong European coalition, but Prussia had retired, and the 
chief antagonists of France were Austria and Napoleon's 
England. Austria had great possessions in Italj, Italian cam- 
and the Directory determined to aim a blow paigns. 
against her there. Napoleon was appointed to the command 
of the "Army of Italy," and in 1796 entered upon his first 
important campaign. The Austrian power was not strongly 
rooted in Italy. The people were, as a rule, ready to welcome 
the ideas of the Eevolution, and they regarded their rulers, 
whether Austrians or native princes, as oppressive, and thought 
of the French as deliverers. The management of the war, 
too, by the Austrians was old-fashioned, and the generals were 
hampered by constant interference from the home authorities. 
So Napoleon advanced from victory to victory. He blockaded 
Mantua and took it, in spite of all efforts to relieve it. Then 
he marched against Yienna, invaded Austrian territory, and 
forced the Emperor to accept the Peace of Campo Formio. 
One of the results of this treaty was that the Eepublic 
of Venice, the oldest of European states, was destroyed, and 
its territory handed over to Alistria. France had already 
gained possession of Belgium, and advanced her frontier up 
to the Phine. 

But the Peace of Campo Formio was shortlived. The 
rulers of France felt their superiority to the powers of Europe, 
and during peace gained, by diplomacy and force, -^j^^ ^^ . ._ 
greater advantages than they had gained by the tions of 
war. AU Italy and Switzerland passed actually, France during 
though not nominally, into the power of France. ^^^ peace. 
The plan of the rulers of France was to interfere on behalf 
of the real or pretended grievances of the people, to alter the 
form of the government, and to bring the new government 
under the protection of the French Republic. Thus Switzerland 
was induced to change her constitution, and the Helvetic 
Republic was established instead ; in the north of Italy the 
Ois-Alpine Republic was established in the plains of Lom- 
bardy and the north ; a little further west Genoa became the 
centre of the Ligurian Republic ; and in Naples the monarchy 
was overthrown and the Parthenopean Republic took its place. 



328 Outlines of European History 

Moreover, Napoleon had, on the conclusion of his Italian 
campaign, set out on a strange expedition against Egypt, 
which was a dependency of Turkey, and with which France 
had no quarrel. On his route thither he captured the island 
of Malta, and then easily overthrew the armies of Egypt ; but 
his fleet was destroyed by Nelson, in the battle of the Nile, and 
his future and that of his army were very precarious. 

These changes upset altogether the balance of power in 
Europe. France seemed to be becoming mistress of the whole 
The second continent. A second great European coalition 
coalition was formed to resist this new power. Prussia 

against remained obstinately neutral ; but Great Britain, 

ranee. Austria, Russia, 'Turkey, Naples, and Portugal 

united to attack France, and the absence of Napoleon in 
Egypt gave them a good hope of success. The most energetic 
member of the new coalition was Paul, the Ozar of Russia. 
At first, all went well with the coalition. The French were ex- 
pelled from all Italy except Genoa, and were driven out of 
Germany beyond the Rhine. But then the quarrels began 
which nearly to the end ruined these wars of coalitions against 
France. The chief fault was with Austria ; and Russia, 
bitterly offended by what seemed to be her selfishness and 
even her treason, withdrew from the coalition. 

Meanwhile a great change passed over the Government 
of France. The rule of the Directory was utterly discredited 
Napoleon by the quarrels of the Directors with the Legis- 
First Consul, lative Chambers, by the corruption of the Directors 
themselves, and by the failure of the French armies against 
the second coalition. Napoleon seemed shut up in Egypt by 
the British fleet, but he escaped with a few of his officers, 
leaving his army behind him. His military triumphs, and the 
skill with which he appealed to the people, procured for him 
an enthusiastic welcome. He was without an army, and yet 
the influence of the Directors was little in comparison with his. 
The soldiers everywhere were ready to support him, and in 
November, 1799, he overthrew the Government of the Directory 
and established a new constitution. This is known as the Revo- 
lution of Brumaire (from the newly adopted name of the month 
in which the event took place). It was a victory of the army 



The Napoleonic Era 



329 




330 Outlines of European History 

over civilians, and it brought a much more centralized and 

despotic form of government. There were to be three consuls 

at the head of France, but Napoleon was to be the First Consul, 

and, in reality, all power lay in his hands. The other consuls 

were little more than his agents. There were various councils 

to assist in the work of legislation, but they were, or soon 

became, entirely subordinate to the First Consul. Step by step 

the power of Napoleon advanced from this time, until he 

became Emperor of the French. 

The new First Consul turned to the war with unsurpassable 

energy, and soon gave evidence of military genius even more 

_, -,. , striking than had been afforded in his first Italian 
The First p 

Consul forces campaigns. A double attack was made on the 
peace on Austrian power. Napoleon himself advanced over 
Europe. ^^^ ^^g ^^^^ Italy, while General Moreau con- 

ducted an army down the Danube towards Vienna. Both armies 
were completely successful. In February, 1801, Austria had 
again to accept peace (the Peace of Luneville), whereby the 
republics established by the French were recognized, and the 
terms of the Peace of Campo Formio were nearly repeated. 
In the next year (1802) Great Britain accepted the Peace of 
Amiens, and Europe was for a moment at peace. 

The interval of peace lasted only for a short time ; but 
this will be a suitable place to notice the vast social changes 
Napoleon's which were passing over France, as a result of the 
domestic rule of Napoleon. First the religious question was 
reforms. settled in a way which lasted for a little over a 

century. The French Revolution had declared rehgious tolera- 
tion as one of its central principles ; but since the time of 
the Reign of Terror, the Roman Catholic Church had been, 
as a matter of fact, cruelly oppressed. And yet a majority of 
the people of France were still Catholic. Napoleon had from 
The Con- ^^® ^^^^ recognized the importance of securing the 
cordat of influence of the Church upon his own side, and in 
Napoleon. j^gQg he made with the pope the famous Concordat. 
By this agreement all religions in France were to be tolerated, 
but Catholicism became again the official and established 
religion in France, and was to be supported out of the revenues 
of the State. But the Government (that is. Napoleon) was to 



The Napoleonic Era 331 

make all appointments in the Church, and could thus make of 
it a direct support to his authority. To the pope belonged 
merely the empty ceremony of " canonical investiture." 

Two years later the pope rendered a great service to 
Napoleon. He came to Paris and crowned him Emperor in 
the cathedral of N6tre Dame. It was a strange Napoleon 
position for the son of the Oorsican attorney to Emperor, 
occupy. But Napoleon was in power more than the equal of 
any crowned head in Europe, and he believed that, apart 
from all motives of personal ambition, it would expedite his 
policy if he were to throw aside the thin pretence of a re- 
public and claim a title, the proudest that European history 
knew. Henceforth, then, he was " The Emperor," and before 
long he allied himself by marriage with the most dignified 
of the reigning families of Europe, the Austrian. 

He was busy, too, about this period with the whole social 
structure of France. Great lawyers under his presidency drew 
up the Code Napoleon (1804), which was hence- The Code 
forth the basis of the legal system of France. A Napoleon, 
new system of education was elaborated, and titles of honour 
and hereditary dignities, which had been swept, away by the 
Eevolution, were re-established. Napoleon founded the Legion 
of Honour in 1802, and through all the changes that have 
agitated France during the past century, membership of the 
legion has remained a coveted distinction. 

But soon the peace which had been established by the 
treaties of Campo Formio and Amiens was broken. The 
rupture with England came first. Each party was -^^r with 
suspicious of the other ; for England had not Great 
ceded Malta, though she had promised to do so by Britain, 
the treaty of Amiens ; and Napoleon's power was advancing 
by leaps and bounds. The various protected republics were 
brought more and more clearly under the power of France. 
Quite apart from the question of Malta, the jealousy of Europe 
would probably not long have allowed the peace to exist. 

First, war came between Great Britain and France (1803). 
But next year Austria and Russia joined in the movement 
against Napoleon. France had been at war with Europe for 
twelve years, but the fighting in the past was on a small 



33^ 



Outlines of European History 



scale in comparison with the gigantic struggle which now 
awaited Europe. What was the general character, what the 
The third general results of the struggle ? Briefly, Napoleon 
coalition. succeeded when he had only the old governments 
of Europe to fight against, and failed when behind the govern- 
ments there arose a resistance of the peoples themselves. And 
as Europe blazes in the great conflagration, in the midst of 
which the daemonic figure of Napoleon is always seen, first as 

its author and then as its 
victim, the social con- 
dition of Europe changes 
profoundly. The prin- 
ciples of the Eevolu- 
tion — the principles of 
liberty and equality — 
were perforce adopted 
by other countries, in 
order to fight against 
Napoleon, the heir of the 
Revolution. Italy traces 
the beginning of her new 
national life to the 
The result of struggles of 
the war to these times ; 
Germany. j^^^ no 

country was more pro- 
foundly influenced than 
Germany. The anti- 
quated and unwieldy 
fabric of the Empire 
was destroyed, and, by the side of Prussia in the north and 
Austria in the south-east. Napoleon created a new govern- 
ment, *' the Confederation of the Rhine," which was formed 
out of the smaller states of the west and south-west. This 
creation was not permanent, but Napoleon's policy paved 
the way for the subsequent re-foundation of the Empire under 
the presidency of Prussia. But it was not only the political 
system of Germany which was aboHshed ; its social condition was 
also profoundly modified. The principles of French legislation 




Lord Nelson. 



The Napoleonic Era 333 

were introduced into Western Germany, and in Prussia serfdom 
was at last abolished and the whole nation called upon to resist 
Napoleon by the wise statesmanship of Stein. Everywhere 
Europe, in fighting against the Revolution, adopted some of 
its principles, and that was especially true of G-ermany. 




H.M.S. Victory. 
Nelson's Flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar. 

We can only mark the chief stages in this combat of giants. 
"The Third Coalition," against which Napoleon was now 
fighting, seemed overwhelmingly strong, including ^^^ ^^^ 
as it did the navy of Great Britain and the armies ag-ainst the 
of Russia and Austria. Upon the sea the power of third _ 
France was annihilated in the battle of Trafalgar ^°^ ^*^°"* 
(1805), and after that Napoleon never dangerously challenged 



334 Outlines of European History 

the naval supremacy of Britain. But the impression of 
Trafalgar was swiftly effaced by the victories which Napoleon 
himself gained in Germany. A large Austrian army capitulated 
at Ulm, Napoleon entered Vienna, and then at Austerlitz 
(December, 1805) defeated with overwhelming loss the Austrian 
and Eussian armies in presence of the Emperors of Austria and 
Russia. Austria was forced to accept the Peace of Pressburg, 
which recognized many changes which Napoleon had introduced 
Prussia goes i^^o Germany. But now Prussia, which for twelve 
to war with years had remained neutral, in spite of solicitation 
Napoleon. from all sides, was driven, by fear of the growing 
power of Napoleon in Germany, into war against him. For 
Prussia had never ceased to aspire to the leadership of Germany, 
and now that leadership seemed likely to fall to France. 
Napoleon regarded himself as the "new Charlemagne," and 
was setting up the kingdoms of Wiirtemberg and Baden and 
forming the Confederation of the Rhine, without regard to the 
wishes or interest of Prussia. Had Prussia joined the coalition 
before Austerlitz the result might have been decisive ; but 
vigour and insight were not to be found in her councils, and now, 
too late to be effective, she joined with Russia against the 
triumphant armies of Napoleon. In October, 1806, at Jena, 
Napoleon crushed the Prussian armies, and soon entered Berlin 
and made himself master of Prussia. The Russians and the 
remnants of the Prussian army still struggled on, but were 
defeated at Friedland (1807). The Peace of Tilsit concluded 
this wonderful struggle. 

Prussia, which forty years before seemed invincible, was 
brought incredibly low. She ceded all her territories west of 
Thehumili- the Elbe, she ceded her Pohsh acquisitions, she 
ation of Baw the kingdoms of Westphalia and of Saxony 

Prussia. erected to be her rivals and her watchers. The 

King and Queen of Prussia had to submit to insults and 
patronage at the hands of the new Emperor of France. The 
The Peace Peace of Tilsit seems to mark essentially the high- 
of TUsit. water mark of Napoleon's power ; though there 
came afterwards a nominal increase of territory. There had 
been hardly a check in his career. His achievements both 
as soldier and statesman seemed something more than human. 



The Napoleonic Era 335 

He remained the leading figure in Europe for eight more 
years ; but the era of his easy triumphs is over. There comes 
first victory after desperate fighting, then desperate fighting 
and no real victory, then the appalling catastrophes of Moscow, 
Leipsic, and Waterloo. 

After Tilsit the attention of Napoleon was especially directed 
to Great Britain, and he thought to ruin her financially by ex- 
cluding her commerce from all European countries. Napoleon 
In pursuit of this will-of-the-wisp, French armies and Eng-iand. 
marched from Lisbon to Moscow, and from Vienna to Waterloo. 

The first successful movement against Napoleon's power 
came from a most unexpected source. There was no govern- 
ment in Europe more contemptible than that of The Spanish 
Spain. It had tamely followed the lead of France War. 
ever since it had retired from the first coahtion. Now Napoleon, 
by a strange intrigue, deposed its royal family and seated his 
own brother upon the Spanish throne (1808). Then the Spanish 
people arose spontaneously against the insolent invader. Europe 
heard with amazement of their daring, and with still greater 
amazement of their success ; for in 1808 General Dupont capitu- 
lated to the Spanish with his whole army at Baylen. It was 
the first great victory gained against the French armies since 
the ascendency of Napoleon, and the Spanish resistance was 
never overcome. Soon an English army, which was later 
under the command of the Dake of Wellington, came to the 
help of Spain. Had Napoleon devoted his whole attention to 
Spain, he might have crushed the Spaniards ; but he was too 
busy elsewhere, and his power bled to death from the Spanish 
trouble. 

It was against Austria that his own efforts were directed, 
for, partly encouraged by the news from Spain, Austria had 
again declared war against France, and the new The fourth 
feature of this war was that the Emperor of Austria coalition, 
appealed to his people, and that the Tirolese fought as the 
Spaniards were fighting. But Napoleon's star was not sinking 
yet. Again Yienna was entered ; again the Austrians were 
defeated, though with huge exertions ; and again the Emperor 
of Austria accepted peace (the Treaty of Yienna) at the dictation 
of Napoleon. His Empire reached now its very widest extent, 



336 Outlines of European History 

The accompanying map (p 329) must be studied to realize 
how wida it was. 




But Napoleon's power rested on the insecure foundation of 
force, and he sought rather to overawe than to conciUate his 
antao-onists. And stiU the Spanish war went on. 



The Napoleonic Era 337 

Now came the great catastrophe of his career. History 
knows of no more colossal tragedy. Since the Peace of Tilsit 
Napoleon had tried to secure the alliance of Eussia, The Russian 
and for a time had succeeded. But now, in 1812, campaign, 
jealousy and rivalry led to war between the Emperor of France 
and the Czar of Russia. Napoleon determined to dictate his 
terms in Moscow as he had dictated them in Vienna. He 
crossed the frontier with close on 600,000 men ; he fought and 
won a great battle ; he occupied Moscow. But the Czar showed 
no sign of negotiating ; the winter threatened. Napoleon deter- 
mined to retreat. He had lost terribly on the outward march. 
He suffered still more terribly as he struggled back to Germany. 
Of his 600,000 men he had a mere handful when he re-entered 
Germany. By death and capture he had lost quite 400,000 men. 

A general European rising followed. Austria, Prussia, and 
Russia flung themselves upon the now clearly tottering fabric 
of French power, and Great Britain assisted with The wars of 
an army in Spain, and subsidies in Central Germany, hberation. 
In October, 1813, Napoleon was crushed in the great battle of 
Leipsic (the Battle of the Nations). He escaped to France with 
a remnant of his troops. The allies followed after him, and 
after much desperate fighting he was forced to abdicate, and 
was allowed to retire to the island of Elba. Louis XYIII., 
brother of Louis XVI., whom the Revolution had guillotined, 
was made King of France. A congress of all the European 
powers was called at Vienna to settle the political condition of 
Europe, shaken as it was by the storms of a quarter of a century. 

But Elba was not the end. France regretted the glories 
of the Napoleonic regime, and was offended by many acts of 
the new Government. The great powers were 
quarrelling furiously in Vienna. So Napoleon ^ ^^ °°' 
left Elba, was received by France with a transport of 
enthusiasm, and again faced a coalition of all Europe, not 
without some possibility of success. But at Waterloo, June 18, 
1815, he was defeated by the forces of Great Britain and 
Prussia. He abdicated a second time, was exiled to Saint 
Helena, and died there in 1821. 

J. H. Base's Life of Napoleon ; Fyffe's Modern Europe ; Seeley's 
Life of Stein. 

Z 



33^ Outlines of European History 

CHAPTER XVII 
Reaction and Revolution 

Congress of Vienna ......... 1815 

Louis Philippe, King of France 1830 

The Year of Revolution? 1848 

Napoleon III., Emperor 1852 

"When the battle of Waterloo had been fought, the representa- 
tives of the states of Europe again met at Vienna to determine 
The Congress the boundaries of the different European states 
of Vienna. and other political questions. No general principle 
controlled their decisions. They refused to recognize the right 
of peoples to a voice in the settlement of their fate, and their 
refusal prepared serious troubles for the next generation. 
France was restored to her frontiers of 1792, and Louis XVIII. 
reigned again. Prussia abandoned some portions of Poland 
and gained instead valuable territories on the Rhine ; while 
Austria abandoned Belgium but was compensated by acquisitions 
in Italy and in the east of G-ermany. Thus Prussia became a 
thoroughly German power while Austria added more foreign 
elements to those which she already possessed. Herein lay 
one great cause which made Prussia fifty years later the head 
of Germany and thrust Austria from that position. Belgium 
was joined to Holland, and ruled as the Kingdom of Holland 
by the head of the house of Orange. Norway was annexed to 
the Kingdom of Sweden. The claims of Poland and of Greece 
were not listened to. Italy remained divided. Spain was re- 
stored to its old royal house, and was ruled in the old bad way. 
With the cessation of the great war, the most modern 
period of European history begins ; and it is far more difficult 
The new to write of it than of the earlier ages, for we are 
forces. often too near to it to be able to distingush the 

really important events. Before we proceed to glance at the 
movements of politics and war, it will be well to note that 
forces were coming into European life which earlier ages had 
hardly known. The steam-engine had been invented, and soon 



Reaction and Revolution 



339 




340 Outlines of European History 

the locomotive came, and through their influence there rose first 
for England, and then for all Europe, a system of industry and 
labour which was new and raised new problems. More and more 
of the energy of statesmen has been devoted to the settlement 
of those problems, and they are far from settled yet. Europe, 
too, during the nineteenth century, came into even closer 
relations with the countries outside Europe. The eighteenth 
century was the period of the "expansion of Europe." 
European powers, and especially G-reat Britain, had then 
gained possessions in all parts of the world ; and the rise of 
the United States had already shown the vast importance of 
*' Europe beyond the Seas." But during the nineteenth 
century the reaction of the rest of the world upon Europe has 
been still greater and more continuous. The race for foreign 
possession has been a frequent cause of rivalry among 
European states, and it is now evident that Europe is not 
destined to exercise a perpetual dominion over all other parts 
of the globe. In war, politics, religion, and thought, the 
influence of Japan, China, India, Africa has been great, and 
will certainly be much greater. European history is a part, 
not the whole, of the history of civilization. Another vast 
topic, which we must leave untouched, is the development of 
religion and philosopy during the nineteenth century. Its 
influences have been as important as during earlier periods ; but 
it seems too early to summarize it and examine its working. 

After 1815, the dominant feeling in Europe was distrust of 
the principles of the French Revolution, and a desire to prevent 
Prin e ^^^^^ issuing in fresh troubles. Austria was the 

Metternich chief influence, and in Austria Prince Metter- 
and his nich was the great power. This subtle diplomatist 

influence. j^^^ contributed much to the overthrow of Napo- 
leon ;. and now he threw his influence everywhere against the 
grant of constitutional liberties. In 1815, hopes had been 
held out that all the German states would receive free con- 
stitutions ; but these hopes were for the most part dis- 
appointed. Prussia remained an absolute monarchy, and 
throughout Germany the Governments were, as a rule, oppres- 
sive, and crushed the freedom of the Press. The same tendency 
was observable in France also. Constitutional government 



Reaction and Revolution 



341 




could not be quite destroyed, but it was limited in every 
possible way. Through Metternich's influence there grew up 
what was known as the Holy Alliance, of which Russia, 
Prussia, and Austria were the chief members, for resisting revo- 
lutionary movements anywhere in Europe ; and promising 
constitutional movements in Spain and Naples were actually 
suppressed by this means. 

Yet the sense of national life, and the desire for Uberty, 
formed a force too great 
for Metternich and the 
Holy Alliance to sup- 
press in the long run. 
In the chief states of 
Europe the repressive 
powers were too strong, 
and the memories of 
the Napoleonic period 
too vivid to allow of a 
rising. But liberty 
found champions in the 
colonies of Spain in 
South America, and in 
Greece. Greece formed 
a part of the dominions 
of the Sultan of Turkey, 
and for four centuries 
the people had bowed 
under the oppressive 
yoke of aliens in race 
and religion ; but all 
the time they cherished their language, a sense of their nation- 
ality, and a desire for freedom. An insurrection broke out in 
1821. Metternich and the European powers who ^.^^ g^.^^ 
agreed with his policy prepared to crush down 
this attack upon the established European order. 
It was largely through the interference of England, 
under the direction of Canning, that the cause of liberty 
triumphed both in the Spanish colonies and in Greece. 

In 1830 the established order was rudely shaken in Western 






i^ti 




Prince Metternich. 

Bom, 1773 ; at the Congress of Vienna, 1814 ; over- 
thrown by tlie Revolution at Vienna, 1848 ; died, 
1859. 



risings 
against 
absolutism. 



342 Outlines of European History 

Europe. The chief movement came in France itself. Louis 
XVIII. liad been succeeded bj his brother, Charles X., and a 
The new spirit of reaction against all ideas of liberty ani- 
revolution in mated his policy. France was recovering from the 
France. exhaustion and the depression which had followed 

on the great wars ; the ideas of the revolution were again in 
the ascendant ; and the efforts of Charles X. to repress them 
produced an outbreak. Paris rose against the king's policy. 
He found himself almost without support, and fled to England. 
The leaders of the revolution were not prepared to set up 
a republic. The monarchy was transferred from the house 
The acces- of Bourbon (to which Charles X. had belonged) 
sion of Louis to the house of Orleans, and Louis Philippe 
Phihppe. ^^g declared king. The new monarchy was 
much more liberal than the old one. The change was not a 
violent one, but it was a great break in the arrangements 
established in 1815. And the movement in France en- 
couraged other movements elsewhere. It had much to do 
The revolu- '^^'^^^ ^^^ winning of the Eeform Bill in England, 
tion in and it produced at once a movement in Belgium. 

Belgium. rpi^g Belgians complained that the Dutch regarded 
them as a subject people, and put upon them an unfair part of 
the financial burdens of the State. They rose and expelled the 
Dutch troops, and secured their independence. Europe was 
frightened of republics, and so, in Belgium as in France, a con- 
stitutional monarchy was set up. The settlement of 1815 had 
received a second heavy blow. 

But these were small events compared with what was soon 
to come. Throughout Europe there was growing up eager 
The new ideas political and social speculation, as enthusiastic as 
in Europe. that which preceded the French Revolution, and 
much more definite and constructive. The wave of revolu- 
tionary thought passed all over Europe, but as before France 
was the centre of it. The problem of social organization was 
occupying men's minds. Could society be so organized, men 
were asking, that poverty and crime and oppression would be 
banished from the world .^ The belief in the possibility of 
great improvements was again universal. Fourier^ Saint 
Simon, and Comte in France had developed systems that 



Reaction and Revolution 343 

powerfully affected men's ideas. SociaKsm in its modern 
phase began to be a force in politics. And at the same time 
there was growing a strong sense of nationality and of race. 
Peoples that had been oppressed by alien races or governments 
were everywhere claiming an independent life. These aspira- 
tions and beliefs brought about the revolutionary movements 
of the year 1848. 

The chief countries which were stirred by this new leaven 
were Italy, Austria, G-ermany, and France ; but -j^q revolu- 
there was hardly a corner of Europe which did tionsofthe 
not feel some results of its working. y^^^ ^^^8. 

Italy, since the fall of the Roman Empire, had never been 
a political unity ; and, both during the Middle Ages and since, 
her divisions and her weakness had made her the 
prey of the stronger nations of Europe. During ^ ^* 

the storms of the Napoleonic period the dream of Italian unity 
had arisen only to be rudely dispelled. But in 1848 demands 
were made by the various states for a constitution, and these 
demands could not be refused. Sicily, Naples, Piedmont, and 
Tuscany received constitutions. Milan and other cities of the 
north rebelled against the Austrian dominion. Even in Pome 
the pope granted certain constitutional rights to the people. 
Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, put himself at the head of 
the national movement. It seemed as though the power of 
Austria would be annihilated, and Italy, in whatever political 
shape, would be mistress of her own destinies. 

Austria had troubles on her hands outside of Italy. The 
Austrian Empire was made up of a strange collection of races, 
languages, and religions. The new hopes of 
change and the new doctrine of nationality excited "^ "^" 
among them the liveliest hopes. Strongest among these 
subject nationalities were the Hungarians and the 
Czechs of Bohemia. Kossuth, the leader of the ""&ary. 
Hungarians, gave the movement its force and energy, and 
demanded an independent government for Hungary and the 
other racial units of Austria. The new movement was so 
strong and threatening that the emperor was forced to yield. 
Metternich, who represented in the popular mind all that was 
worst in the old system, was dismissed; feudalism was abolished ; 



344 Outlines of European History 

and a constitution was promised. Later the Emperor was 
forced to flee from Vienna. The problem of the organization 
of the many races of Austria was an extraordinarily difficult 
one, but change of some sort seemed assured. 

In Germany the aspirations to national unity had grown 
strong ever since the fall of Xapoleon. Prussia and the larger 
states had, in 1837, formed a customs union or 
PnaSk.^^" Zollverein, and the practice of common action, 
then initiated for commercial purposes, paved 
the way for political union. Thus the year 18-48 found the 
country eager for action. The Prussians demanded a con- 
stitution, and the news of the fall of Metternich in Vienna 
induced the king, Frederick William IV., to yield. A 
constitution was promised, along with freedom of the Press, 
and a closer federation for Germany. A national assembly 
was summoned ; and here too the eager anticipations of liberty 
and constitutional progress seemed fully justified. 

In France, so often the centre of European revolutionary 
movements, events were on a larger scale and achieved a more 
Therevolu- immediate success. The Government of King 
tionin Louis Philippe and his minister Guizot was in 

France. many respects a good one, and the interests of the 

middle and commercial classes had been especially attended to. 
But it was not calculated to evoke enthusiasm, and latterly had 
had recQurse to measures of oppression against its opponents. 
The minds of many Frenchmen were turning fondly to the 
glorious memories of the great Napoleon, while others were 
eager for change which should usher in the golden age, in the 
possibility of which so many men believed. Against these new 
feelings the commonplace Government of Louis Philippe was 
quite unable to maintain itself. Riots broke out in conse- 
quence of the opposition of the Government to reform, and 
Louis Philippe made no efi'ort to fight against them. He 
abdicated in favour of his grandson, and fled to England. But 
Paris was in no mind to accept a new monarchy. The re- 
The second public was declared, and a national assembly 
republic. elected by manhood suffrage was called together. 

At first it seemed that the change would be made without 
bloodshed ; but the conflict of aims between the moderate and 



Reaction and Revolution 345 

the socialist party led to some days of fierce fighting, in which 
the moderates triumphed. A new constitution was elaborated 
in which there was to be a single legislative chamber and a 
president. Who was to be president ? Much of the future of 
France depended on the answer to that momentous question. 
Louis Napoleon, the nephew of the great Napoleon, Louis 
had recently returned to France after a very Napoleon, 
adventurous career. All the memories of the greatness of 
France were connected with his name. The result of the 
election for the presidency was that an enormous majority of 
the voters declared for him. Thus Louis Napoleon became 
President of the second French Republic. 

So far, then, the victory lay everywhere with the forces of 
change, nationality, and constitutional progress. 
But soon a reaction set in at every point, and ^^^ ^°°* 
upon some arenas of the struggle the Revolution w^as crushed, 
upon others its victory was postponed. 

In Italy the high hopes of the Revolutionists had failed 
before the end of the year. The Governments which had 
granted constitutions were in some instances anxious Reaction 
to avail themselves of the first opportunity to in Italy, 
take them away again ; there were jealousies between the 
forces of the different states ; there was no capable military 
leader. The Austrian troops, therefore, found little difiiculty 
in suppressing what had at one time seemed the irresistible 
movement of the north of Italy. Resistance collapsed after a 
couple of defeats, and the status quo in the north of Italy was 
restored. The same fate befell the Revolutionists in the south 
of Italy. The constitutions were withdrawn and the old form 
of government re-established. There had been for a time a 
republic in Rome, where Mazzini and Garibaldi were the 
leading spirits ; but this, too, failed, and the Papal power was 
restored. The hope of Italian liberty did not disappear by any 
means from the minds of men, but it had to wait twenty years 
for its fulfilment. 

In Austria events followed a somewhat similar course. 
Here, too, there was division of aim and jealousy Reaction 
between race and race, and thus the Government in Austria. 
was able for the time to triumph completely. For a time 



346 Outlines of European History 

Vienna was in the hands of the insurgents ; but the city was 

recaptured by the royalist troops, and a reactionary regime 

re-established. The movement was most dangerous 

ungary. .^ Hungary, for there an independent government 
had been proclaimed, and in Kossuth the Hungarian movement 
had a chief of great wisdom and tenacity. But Hungary had 
no force that could oppose the Austrian armies when they 
were free from the Italian difficulty, and now Austria was 
assisted by Russia. In 1849 the Hungarians were utterly 
defeated, Kossuth was driven to take refuge in Turkey, and 
the country passed again under the oppressive yoke of Austria. 
The general results of the " year of Revolution " for Austria 
were to strengthen the power of the Austrian Emperor. 

Nowhere had the hopes of change been higher than in 

Germany. There men had confidently hoped for a united 

Germany with constitutional governments estab- 

ermany. ligj^ed in the different states. All had turned on 
Prussia and the King of Prussia, and if Frederick William IV. 
and his advisers had been possessed of real statesmanship and 
energy, a German Empire under Prussian presidency might 
have been founded now instead of twenty-three years later. 
But the Prussian king had neither clearness of thought nor 
energy of action. He allowed the favourable moment of 
Austria's complications in Italy and Hungary to pass. He 
offended the monarchies of Europe, and especially the Czar, 
on the one hand, and on the other he failed to satisfy the 
revolutionary and democratic aspirations of his own people. 
When Austria recovered from her troubles her influence was 
thrown against Prussia. For a moment it seemed as if the 
crown of a united Germany was within Frederick William's 
grasp, but then all changed, and Germany gained neither unity 
nor liberty from the crisis of 1818. Unity she was destined 
to gain nearly a quarter of a century later by far different 
methods than those of which the revolutionists of 1818 dreamed ; 
liberty, in the sense in which the word was used in that time 
of sublime enthusiasms, she has not yet gained. 

The reaction in France was equally complete. Louis 
Napoleon, the president, stood to the constitution somewhat 
in the same relation in which his uncle had stood after the 



Reaction and Revolution 



347 



Revolution of Brumaire (1799). All men's eyes were upon him, 
and the Assembly was discredited by its squabbles, the desire 
of a section to restore the Government of Charles The second 
X., and certain measures it passed, whereby the French 
control of education in France was given to the Empire, 
clergy. At the end of four years Napoleon should have retired 
from the presidency. But in 1851, confident of his own popu- 
larity, he dismissed the Assembly and submitted a new consti- 
tution to France, whereby the executive government, including 
the president, was to be elected for ten years. An almost 
unanimous vote gave Na- 
poleon the powers he desired. 
A year later he felt himself 
strong enough to take a yet 
further step. He had been 
on a great tour through the 
provinces of France, and felt 
sure of their support. He 

asked, therefore, „ 
„ ^ ' . Napoleon III. 

for the restora- 
tion of the Empire, and again 
an overwhelming majority 
supported his ambition. 
He reigned until 1870 with 
the title of Napoleon III. 

Thus the second French 
Republic had ended even 
more quickly than the first 
in the establishment of the 

Empire. The revolutionary movements ended for the 
everywhere in the temporary victory of absolutism 
reaction. But the victory could be only temporary, 
ideas of 1848, like the ideas of 1789, were too important, 
and a large part of them too true, to be annihilated by 
military or constitutional defeat. So men still cherished 
all over Europe the vision of a regenerated Europe which 
had floated upon them in 1848 ; and before the end of the 
century some of these ideas were realized in France and 
elsewhere. 




Napoleon III. 

Son of Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland; 
born, 1808; in London, 1838; President of 
the Republic, 1848 ; emperor, 1852 ; a pri- 
soner at Sedan, 1870 ; died, 1873. 



time 
and 
The 



343 Outlines of European History 

Fyffe's Modern Europe; Alison Phillips' Modern Europe; The 
Student's History of France; Seignohos' Political History of Europe 
since 1811. 



CHAPTER XVIII 
The Unification of Italy and Germany 

The Crimean War 1854 

Napoleon III. in Italy 1859 

The Kingdom of Italy 1865 

William I., King of Prussia 1861 

Battle of Sadov/a 1866 

Franco-German War 1870 

The German Empire 1871 

The enthusiastic aspirations of the revolutionists of 1848 had 
failed at every point. They had desired political self-govern- 
ment, and the establishment of national unity. But the result 
was that nearly everywhere absolute governments were estab- 
lished ; Italy and Germany were still divided, and the national 
spirit unsatisfied ; Hungary still lay under Austrian rule. 
During the next twenty-three years Italy and Germany 
achieved the national unity which the revolutionists had 
aspired after. But by what different means ! Popular 
enthusiasm and the rights of nationalities counted in the final 
result for very little. Resolute statesmanship, employing 
astute intrigue and great armaments, brought Italy and 
Germany under one government. It was not done, as Bis- 
marck said, by Parliamentary decrees, but by blood and iron. 

These great events can best be understood if we look first at 
France. Napoleon III. was ruling there. He had been raised 
to the imperial throne by the vote of the people of France, and 
he claimed to represent the popular will and the Napoleonic 
tradition. But there was little in common between the methods 
and character of Napoleon I. and those of his nephew. The 
prestige of France was great in Europe ; but she was no longer 
able to force her will upon civilized Europe and to refashion 



The Unification of Italy and Germany 349 

the European state system as she thought well. France was 
far weaker than in the great days of Napoleon, and Europe was 
far stronger. Thus Napoleon III. had to have recourse to subtle 
intrigue, where Napoleon I. would have struck straight and 
hard. Yet military prestige was absolutely necessary to Napoleon 
III. Only by dazzling the eyes of the people could he induce 
them to forego their desire for freedom and democratic 
government. 

Napoleon III. had been proclaimed Emperor in December, 
1852. In less than two years France was at war with Russia. 
The question at issue involved the whole future of The Crimean 
the Turkish state and the position of Russia in the War. 
east of Europe. In resisting Russian pressure upon Turkey, 
France had the alliance not only of Turkey herself, but of 
Great Britain, and, during the later stages of the war, of the King 
of Sardinia : that is, of the strongest state of northern Italy. 
There is no need here to recapitulate the cour^^e of the war. 
Vast numbers were employed ; there was great loss of life by 
battle, disease, and cold ; but the course of the campaign was 
tame, and the strategy was dull and unad venturous, compared 
with what Europe had known during the great Napoleonic wars. 
No first-rate military ability was shown, at least, on the side of 
the allies ; but the Russians were defeated again and again, and 
after the fall of the great city of Sebastopol, in September, 1855, 
Russia accepted terms. The integrity of Turkey was guaran- 
teed ; Russian warships were excluded from the Black Sea, and 
her southward advance seemed permanently checked. A few 
years later it turned out that the loss inflicted on Russia was not 
so great as it seemed. Her warships were soon seen in the 
Black Sea again, and her armies passed victoriously to the south 
of the Danube. 

Napoleon III. had achieved a success in the Crimean War, 
which was extremely valuable in consolidating his power at 
home. Soon he appeared decisively on a still more The libera- 
important arena. The beginnings of Italian unity tion of Italy, 
and liberty were largely the work of his diplomacy and his 
armies. 

In no country had the movements of 1848 been attended by 
nobler enthusiasms than in Italy. The prophet of Italian 



35«> Outlines of European History 

liberty was Mazzini, who preached the doctrines of democracy 
and national unity with unsurpassed religious fervour. But 
nothing had been done. Italy was still divided. Austria held 
Venice and a broad tract of the valley of the Po ; the papal 
states stretched across Italy, turbulent and ill governed ; in the 
south Naples and Sicily were in the oppressive hands of the 
Bourbon monarchy. But in the far north-west there was 
the so-called kingdom of Sardinia, consisting of Savoy and 
Piedmont, as well as of Sardinia ; and the Sardinian king, 
Victor Emmanuel, made himself the representative of Italian 
sentiment, and finally carried the cause to victory. But, great 
as were the services of Victor Emmanuel, the liberation of Italy 
was not really his work. The two names that should be most 
closely associated with the great result are Cavour, the diplo- 
matist, and Garibaldi, the soldier. 

Napoleon III. desired a further field in which to distinguish 
himself ; and Cavour saw in French assistance the best hope of 
The first starting the national movement. He hoped at 
stage. first that diplomacy and a show of force would be 

enough ; but hard fighting was necessary in the end. In 1859 
a French army appeared in the plains of Lombardy — where 
French armies had fought so often and with such varied success 
during the last four hundred years. France and her Italian 
allies triumphed again, first at Magenta, then at Solferino. It 
seemed as though Austria might be driven from Italy, and the 
highest dreams of the Italian patriots brought near to accomplish- 
ment. But Napoleon had had enough of the war, and was 
frightened by the aspirations of Italy. He concluded peace with 
the Emperor of Austria, on terms widely different from the 
desires of Cavour. The King of Sardinia was to receive Lom- 
bardy ; all else was to be restored to the former owners. 
Cavour retired into private life in passionate indignation. 

It seemed that little had been done for the national cause, 
but the prestige of Austria had been shaken and the position of 
The second ^he Sardinian king, as the champion of Italian 
stage (1859). unity, established. The next step followed very 
quickly. To the south of the Sardinian kingdom there lay 
Tuscany, Parma, Modena, and the Romagna (a part of the 
papal territories). Risings broke out in all these states — a 



The Unification of Italy and Germany 351 

common army was organized — union with the kingdom of 
Sardinia was demanded. Cavour returned from his retirement 
as this new hope dawned. Napoleon III. was inclined to resist 
this infringement of the arrangement that he had made, but 
he was bought off by the cession of Nice and Savoy. So the 
above-mentioned districts were incorporated in the Sardinian 
kingdom, and free Italy stretched far into the centre of the 
peninsula. 

The next step was the most romantic of ail. Sicily and 
Naples had been stirred by the great events in the north, but 
there had been no actual movement of revolt against xhe third 
the Bourbon dominion. But now Garibaldi arose, stage (i860), 
one of the most adventurous soldiers of the nineteenth century. 
He landed with a thousand red-shirted volunteers in Sicily, and 
his arrival was the signal for the overthrow of the Bourbon 
dominion in the island. He crossed the straits, and the Nea- 
politan kingdom fell into his hands, though not without fierce 
fighting. Cavour saw Garibaldi's advance with alarm as well 
as hope ; for Garibaldi's ideas were of an extreme revolutionary 
type, and the statesman in him was not the equal of the soldier. 
But in the end diplomacy solved the problem. Not only Naples 
and Sicily, but the greater part of the papal territories as well 
were annexed to what was now the kingdom of Italy. 

Even now the wishes of the Italian patriots fell short of 
realization. Venice still bowed to the yoke of the foreigner ; 
and Rome, by far the most famous of all the ^u 

XT . . n ^ XT •'■ ^^ COm- 

Italian cities, was no part of the new Italian pietion of 
kingdom. We must anticipate events in order to Italian 
see how Venice and Rome were incorporated. In ""^*^' 
order to gain that end Italy had to triumph over the opposition 
or the jealousy of Austria and of France : for Austria was 
mistress of the Venetian lands, and the papal power in Rome 
was supported by a French garrison. But in 1866, Austria 
was at war with Prussia, and the Italians, though far from 
triumphant in their conflicts with the Austrian troops, suc- 
ceeded in securing the territory of Venice in the settlement 
with which the war ended. Then, in 1870, France succumbed 
to the attack of Prussia, in that great war at which we mast 
glance in a moment. The French garrison, which had for some 



352 Outlines of European History 

time past occupied Rome and defended the Papal power, was 
withdrawn, and in September the Italian troops occupied the 
Eternal City. The unity of Italy was complete, and the 
temporal dominion of the Papacy was at an end. 

Italy was at last more than a " geographical expression." 
She was a state, and henceforth a progressive member of the 

. , _ European commonwealth of states. Yery shortly 
tionofthe a^ter the occupation of Rome by the Italian 
German troops, Germany was declared an Empire, and was 

Empire. henceforth, until the present time, the great 

military state of Europe. Here, too, we must trace the chief 
steps by which the great event was arrived at. 

German unity was the work of Prussia even more than 
Italian unity was the work of Sardinia ; and Prussia achieved 
her great object by the humiliation of two rivals, Austria and 
France. Austria was her rival within the limits of Germany 
itself ; France was her rival in Europe, and resisted, openly 
or secretly, each step in the advance of Prussia towards the 
refoundation of the German Empire. But before the out- 
break of the great war there were signs that, in spite of 
Napoleon's success in the Crimea and Italy, the power of 
Decline in France was declining. In 1863, a rising in 
the power of Poland was beaten down, and the efforts of 
France. France to control the movement were quite un- 

availing. A little later the effort of Napoleon III. to establish 
a European ruler, in close alliance with France, upon the 
throne of Mexico, ended in ignominious failure, as soon as 
the United States were free from the great civil war which had 
been raging within their boundaries. Moreover, popular dis- 
content was beginning to show itself in a dangerous shape in 
France itself. 

Three names stand out in Prussia's triumphant march on 
the path to Empire — the king, William I., who came to the 
The ag-ents throne in 1860 ; Bismarck, the powerful, capable, 
in the Prus- unscrupulous diplomatist of the age ; and Moltke, 
sian victory. i]^q organizer of the Prussian array and the greatest 
strategist that Europe has known since the fall of Napoleon. 

It was upon Austria that the first blow of Prussia fell 
Their rivalry became acute over the question of the duchies 



The Unification of Italy and Germany 353 

of Schleswig-Holstein, which had been forced from the grasp 
of Denmark by a joint Austrian and Prussian occupation. 
After the occupation, the future of Schleswig-Holstein led to 
sharp diplomatic friction and then to war. Prussia had the 
alliance of Italy, but the chances were believed to be favour- 
able to Austria. Yet the Austrian power collapsed at once. 
A single great battle (Sadowa, July, 1866) forced Austria 
to accept terms. The German confederation was dissolved. 
Austria was excluded from any participation in German affairs. 
Prussia annexed Hanover, and was henceforth the chief power 
in Germany, without rival or second. Now the great monarchy 
was to receive the further dignity of the imperial title, as 
Charles the Great and Otto I. had received it ; but this time 
the pope was to have no hand in conferring it. 

There have been few great wars in European history where 
the nominal cause of the struggle has been more widely removed 
from the real cause than in the war between France The Franco- 
and Prussia which broke out in 1870. The diplo- German War. 
matists were arguing about the succession to the Spanish crown ; 
but the real point at issue was the rival claims of France and 
Prussia to a leading place in Europe. Napoleon III. and his 
ministers had followed the advance of Prussia with great 
jealousy, and had declared that Germany must not be united 
under her leadership ; and Prussia saw in the power of France 
the chief obstacle to her imperial ambitions. Napoleon III. 
had no desire for war for its own sake, but his unstable 
position in France required the support of diplomatic or 
military success, and he believed that success in a war against 
Germany was assured. The statesmen of Prussia welcomed a 
struggle, for which they had long and carefully prepared, and 
they, too, were confident of success. 

The diplomacy of Prussia had carefully isolated France 
before the outbreak of hostilities. She had hoped for help 
from Italy, Austria, and the states of southern jhe isola- 
Germany ; but Italy was irritated with France on tion of 
account of the surrender of Savoy and Nice, which France, 
she had enforced, while Bismarck had succeeded in making 
arrangements which assured the neutrality of Austria and the 
active assistance of the southern states of Germany. 

2 A 



354 Outlines of European History 

Tlie FreDcli had designed to open the war by an attack on 
Germany, but they found themselves unprepared when the 
The course hour of action arrived. On the Prussian side 
of the war. there was a complete contrast : all was efficiency 
and preparedness ; and immediately, on the outbreak of 
hostilities, an enormous German force poured across the 
French frontier. The rapidity and completeness of the suc- 
cesses which followed exceeded anything that Europe had known 
since the days of the first Napoleon. The French did not win 
one single engagement of even second-rate importance, and 
bad immediately to change aggression for a defensive cam- 
paign. But their elforts at concentration were ruined by the 
overwhelming catastrophe of Sedan (September, 1870), in 
which the Emperor Napoleon was defeated and forced to 
surrender. Marshal Bazaine was shut up in Metz, but he also 
was forced to surrender in October, 1870, with all his troops. 
Meanwhile a rising in Paris had declared the empire abolished 
and the republic re-established. If Prussia's quarrel had been 
only with Napoleon III. the war might have ended here ; but 
Bismarck declared that France must cede Alsace and Lorraine. 
The republican government refused so great a surrender, and 
the German army advanced to the siege of Paris. The defence 
of the city was conducted with great skill and heroic endur- 
ance ; but all efforts to relieve the city from the outside, and all 
sallies from the inside, were beaten off. At the end of January, 
1871, the great city — in some respscts the capital of Europe 
— surrendered. Alsace and part of Lorraine were to become 
German again, and France was to pay a vast war indemnity. 

Before the conclusion had been reached the Prussian king 
had become the Emperor of Germany. The prodigious success 
Foundation ^f the war had set the seal to Prussia's predomi- 
of the German nance in Germany. Conditions had to be arranged 
Empire. y^[^]^ Bavaria and Wiirtemberg, and this was the 

work of Bismarck. At last, in January, 1871, William of 
Prussia was acclaimed emperor in the great hall of the 
Palace of Versailles. Yersailles had often, in the past, re- 
echoed the humiliations of Germany at the hands of France : 
the palace of Louis XIV. and Napoleon I. now witnessed the 
completion of the triumph of Germany. 



The Last Generation of European History 355 

The French Eepablic had another terrible trial to pass 
through before it could feel itself in any way secure. Paris 
had retained its National Guard when the rest of The Com- 
the troops were disarmed, and the city now broke mune. 
out in fierce revolt against, the terms of the peace and the 
form of the new republic, and demanded an independent 
government for Paris herself. This movement — usually 
known as the Paris Commune — was suppressed after much 
fighting and cruelty on both sides. But it wr.s suppressed, 
and the Third Republic, born amidst such agonies, has ruled 
France ever since. 

Stilhnan's Union of Italy ; Hcadlam's Bismarck (Heroes of the 
Nations) ; Cavoui', by Countess Cesaresco (Foreign Statesmen). 



CHAPTER XIX 
The Last Generation of European History 

Russo -Turkish War 1877 

Hague Conference 1898 

The thirty-five years that have elapsed since the conclusion of 
the Franco-G-erman War have not made us think that war less 
important in the development of Europe. Rather ^j^^ influence 
we see that the changes which it introduced on of the Franco- 
either side of the Rhine, and the influence which German 
it has exercised on other countries, are permanent ^^^* 
factors in the relations of the states of modern Europe. 
Germany remains, in her essential features, what 
that great war made her — an empire nominally 
federal, but really guided by the policy of Prussia. The 
Emperor "William, already an old man when the great triumph 
was achieved, died in 1888 ; and in the same year, after the 
short reign of his father, the present Emperor William IT. 
came to the throne. Moltke died in 1891. In 1890 Bismarck 
was dismissed from office by the young and ardent emperor ; 
but in spite of all changes the German state has proceeded 



356 Outlines of European History 

along the lines which were laid down during the great struggle. 
It remains for Europe the great example of a state, strongly 
and efficiently organized upon a monarchical basis, with 
universal military service and universal education as the chief 
supports to its power. Since 1871 Germany has grown, too, 
with amazing rapidity to be one of the chief commercial states 
of Europe. The methods that had been so successful in 
military matters have been applied to commerce. But with 
this rapid development of German wealth, many of the old 
characteristics of Germany have disappeared. There is a 
marked decline in the old simplicity of life, in the old spirit of 
idealism, and in many of the old enthusiasms. The problem 
of the claims and rewards of labour, moreover, has emerged 
with a strength of organization and definiteness of aim in 
Germany greater than elsewhere in Europe. Despite all the 
greatness of the past, no country in Europe interrogates the 
future w4th more anxious questioning than Germany. 

For France, as for Germany, the war of 1870 was the 
beginning of a new phase in her life. The disaster of the war, 
_ almost unparalleled in its intensity, seemed at first 

as though it would efface France from the list of 
the great powers. But the result has proved far different. 
The history of France during the past generation has indeed 
been full of storm ; but not only has the state survived, but 
each decade has seen her growing in steadiness and in prosperity. 
The republic which had been founded amid all the horrors of 
disaster and civil war, seemed at first little likely to maintain 
itself against its opponents. For supporters of the claims 
of the Bourbon, the Orleanist, and Napoleonist dynasties all 
intrigued against it, and trusted to gain their own ends in 
the confusion. The political life of France has indeed exhibited 
constant change upon the surface. None of the eight presidents 
who have been elected since 1871 have really controlled its 
destinies, and in the ministries change has succeeded change with 
bewildering rapidity. Nor has France been without grave 
troubles of every kind ; threats of renewed war with Germany, 
labour troubles of extreme bitterness, difficulties in adjusting 
the relations between the army and the civil authorities, 
colonial difficulties, and in the last years a bitter contest with 



The Last Generation of European History 357 

the Church. Perhaps no one of these troubles has quite 
disappeared. But France has learned much in education, in 
political organization, and in war from the great enemy who 
humiliated her ; and it is at least possible that the period of 
violent change in the form of government may have come to 
an end for France with the great war ; and the future may 
see the settlement and progress of the last thirty-five years 
carried further and placed beyond the danger of complete 
overthrow. The warm friendship which now exists between 
her and G-reat Britain— what is known as the entente cordiale 
— may be hoped to contribute to this end. 

For Europe generally the generation since the great war 
has been one of peace, broken only by the Eusso-Turkish War 
of 1877, which will soon be mentioned ; and all ^ 
states of Europe have felt the urgency of the tasks armaments 
of domestic organization which lie before them. andtheHague 
But, in spite of this, in every country in Europe Conference, 
these years have seen a constant and rapid increase in military 
preparations, until Europe has become a vast armed camp. 
For this result the Franco-German War is chiefly responsible, 
both by reason of the example it gave of the success of a fully 
armed and fully prepared state, and also because of the bitter 
antagonisms and jealousies which it left behind. In spite of 
constant declarations of the ruinous nature of the burdens 
involved, and of the unreasonable character of the competition 
in armament?, no effort to reduce the armed forces of Europe 
has as yet proved successful. In 1898 the Czar of Russia 
invited the other powers of Europe to co-operate with him in 
an effort to procure disarmament ; and delegates from all 
civilized states met in response to this appeal at the Hague in 
1898. It is possible, even probable, that future ages may 
look back to that conference as the beginning of very great 
things. It has already done something to provide a machinery 
of arbitration between states ; but the proposed reduction of 
armaments has not taken place. Rather they have increased, 
and £Oon after the conference had finished its labours. Great 
Britain at the one extremity of Europe, and Russia at the 
other, became involved in wars of enormous scope. 

But in Europe itself, there has been only one serious war — 



358 Outlines of European History 

the Russo-Turkish struggle, already alluded to. This book 
has throughout concerned itself chiefly with the great states 
The Russo- ^^^ TSiCes, of Western Europe, and has only occa- 
Turkish sionally looked south of the Danube into the 

"^^^- Balkan peninsula, or east of the German frontier 

into Russia, and we must now be content with a slight glance 
at this war. The great effort of the Crimean AYar had not 
succeeded in infusing new strength into the Turkish state. 
Political reforms were not introduced, or, if introduced, 
remained inoperative ; the different races within her borders 
were restless and discontented ; all her Christian subjects 
resented the rule of a Mahomedan power. Russia, meanwhile, 
was advancing and consolidating her position. She had 
availed herself of the Franco-German War to repudiate her 
promise to keep no war vessels in the Black Sea. While 
Turkey seemed more and more to deserve the title of the 
"sick man of Europe," Russia rose more and more in the 
hopes of the subject populations of the Balkan peninsula, and 
assumed the role of protector of the Christians within the 
Sultan's dominions. The stirrings of the Christian subjects 
of Turkey on the Danube frontier, and the fierce repressive 
measures of the Sultan, gave Russia an excuse for interfering, 
first diplomatically, and then by force of arms. In the struggle 
that followed Europe stood aside, and the war was a duel 
between the Russians and the Turks. The early results were 
surprising. The Turks showed unexpected military vigour ; 
the Russians were beaten at several points, and many prophesied 
a Turkish victory. But when Russia had had time to bring 
up reinforcements the result was soon placed beyond doubt. 
Constantinople itself was threatened. Then the interests of 
Europe and the action of Great Britain prevented the further 
The Treaty advance of Russian arms. A European Congress 
of Berlin. -was called at Berlin, and its general result was to 
establish along the Danube a number of small independent 
states. Roumania, Servia, and Montenegro were relieved of 
their dependence upon Turkey, and were henceforth to rank 
as sovereign and independent states. To the south of the 
Danube, along its lower course, the new states of Bulgaria and 
Roumelia were created out of Turkish territory. But their 



The Last Generation of European History 359 

division was unnatural, and desired by neither party, and their 
union, as Bulgaria, followed in 1885. The future of these 
creations of the treaty of Berlin is still to some extent 
doubtful. But they have not proved the slavish instruments 
of the great powers ; they have at least continued to exist, and 
have thus belied the most pessimistic prophecies that were 
uttered over them at their birth. 

As we approach the present day the difficulty of such a 
summary as this increases. Doubtless the historian who writes 
of the last quarter of a century from the distance of two or 
three hundred yoars, will see events in diflferent proportion 
from that in which they present themselves to our eyes. Most 
of what fills the newspapers of to-day will sink out of sight ; 
it may be that movements, ideas, organizations, that are un- 
known, or little known, will be seen to be the really important 
growths of the time. Two points would seem now chiefly to 
call for notice. First, inside all European states the democratic 
movement has made rapid advances, and seems .j-j^^ . . 
everywhere to move to assured victory. Its ideals movements 
may not be realized, its victory may not be com- 0/ modern 
plete; but the claims of the whole mass of the ^^^^^' 
people to be considered, and to exercise a decisive influence 
on the government of the state, is a dominant factor in 
every state of Western Europe. The labour movement — 
what may be vaguely spoken of as the Socialist movement — is 
one phase of that. It is an effort to banish poverty and 
oppression, and the vice and crime that flow from them, and to 
realize those dreams of social progress that have never been 
quite unknown since the days of Greece, but have assumed so 
much greater definiteness during the last century and a half. 
It would be wholly out of place here to analyze the aims of this 
movement, and still more to criticize them ; but we may here, 
with confidence, anticipate the verdict of the future historian, 
and say that here, at least, we have a movement which, under 
whatever transformations, is destined to remain one of the 
formative forces of European life. 

The second outstanding feature of this time seems to be 
the reaction of the world upon Europe. As the Romans, in 
their pride, said that their empire was co-extensive with the 



360 Outlines of European History 

world, so the European nations have thought of themselves 
as the only depositories of civilization, and have assumed that. 
The reaction liowever the comparative importance of the differ- 
of the world ent European states might change, there was 
upon Europe, nowhere in the world a power which could check 
the advance of Europe as a whole, or add anything of value to 
European civilization. But it is now plain that the progress 
of civilization, and the destinies of the human race, are not 
henceforth to depend wholly on the nations of Western Europe, 
and that the control of the European nations over the rest of 
the earth's surface, may conceivably be challenged and rejected. 

The colonies which European states have planted have, 
almost without exception, risen up into a position entirely 
The inde- independent of the compulsion of the state from 
pendence of which they sprang. The rise of the United States 
European of America is the most prominent, and the most 
important instance of this tendency, but it stands 
by no means alone. The Spanish and Portuguese colonies of 
Central and Southern America are also independent, and, if 
they are somewhat backward in their political and social 
development, as compared with North America, it cannot be 
doubted that they are destined, later or sooner, to play a great 
part in deciding the trend of the destinies of the human race. 
The great British colonies, too, — Canada, Australia, New 
Zealand, South Africa — whatever may be the future of their 
connection with the Mother State, are clearly, in effect, already 
independent, and allies rather than subjects of Great Britain. 
And as these states, of European origin and culture, develop 
and play an even greater part in the political, commercial, and 
intellectual life of the globe than they play at present, more 
and more will Europe shrink in comparative importance, and 
feel that she is a part, not the whole, of civilization. 

The changed relations between Europe and the world are 
also seen if we look at the non- European states in distant parts 
p. d ^^ ^^^ globe. Hitherto, since the decadence of 

the non- Islam, the military superiority of Europe over the 

European non-European world has been beyond all question ; 
races. ^^^^ superiority is still maintained, but no longer 

to the same extent as formerly. As the Koman Empire, by 



The Last Generation of European History 361 

continuous wars, educated the barbarians until thej were able 
to defeat her, so it seems to be with modern Europe. Doubt- 
less, over the greater part of the earth's surface the white 
man maintains an unquestioned military supremacy ; but there 
are signs that that supremacy wiU not remain for ever unchal- 
lenged. Even the free races of Africa seem to show greater skill 
and more advanced military methods in each successive conflict 
with Europeans. The overwhelming defeat of a large Italian 
army at Adowah in Abyssinia in 1896 is the great example of 
this ; but there are others, though none so extraordinary. But 
it is in Asia that the reaction of the world against Europe is now 
most noticeable. There the French Government received a heavy 
defeat at the hands of the Chinese in Tonkin. But it is useless 
to look at smaller instances when the greatest of all lies nearest 
to us. For during the last decade Japan has emerged as a first- 
rate power. Her victories over China created little surprise, 
for China's power of resistance was believed to be contemptible ; 
but it was different when war broke out between Russia and 
Japan, and when Japan, in spite of all prophecies of her certain 
defeat, marched through an almost unbroken series of victories 
to the capture of Port Arthur, and the annihilation of Russian 
prestige in the Far East. Here, too, we may confidently 
assume, is a series of events which will assume an even greater 
importance as the centuries follow one another. The wide 
influence of the event is already plain in the constitutional 
movement which has triumphed in Russia, and in the trans- 
formation which is reported to be passing over China. 

If Europe thus becomes conscious that the world is no 
longer hers to control, there is no reason to believe that the 
consequence will be only or mainly evil. The expansion of 
Europe has been one of the great causes of conflict among 
European states ; as her control over the non-European world 
shrinks, she will perhaps become again conscious of the strong 
ties that bind European states to one another, of the essential 
unity and common interest of European civilization, and it 
may turn out that the fall of Port Arthur has in effect sap- 
ported the task of European pacification to which the Czar set 
his hand in the Hague Conference. 

In the introductory remarks to this book we said that the 



362 Outlines of European History 

European history might be analyzed into the three great 
divisions of Government, Society, and Religion. In these con- 
cluding remarks we have said something of society, something 
of government, but nothing of religion. In truth, it is too 
early yet to speak in such a sketch as this of the religious 
tendencies of the past generation. The chief feature would 
seem to be the disappearance of all religious authority for 
Europe as a whole, and that would be true, even if we give 
to religion its extended significance so as to include philosophy 
and all convictions that influence the life of men and states. 
Individualism, dispersion, disorder, seem to be the features of 
the intellectual life of Europe. There is an infinity of books, 
but no writer who gives the watchword to intellectual Europe ; 
constant philosophical disputation, but as yet no dominant 
philosophical trend ; many religious divisions, but little clear 
guidance given or loyally followed. If the philosophical and 
religious atmosphere cleared, if definiteness and fixity of con- 
viction took the place of vagueness and a general flux, that 
would be a change, perhaps decisive of the future of European 
civilization. 

J. H. Rose's Dcvelopnent of European Nations since 1870 ; Prince 
Hohenlohe's Memoirs. 



INDEX 



Aacben, 153, 155 

Abelard, 203 

Abotrites, 148 

Abyssinia, SCO 

Achaea, 32 

Acropolis, 8, 13, 14, 16, 17 

Adelaide, 161 

Adige, 129 

Adowah, 360 

Adriatic, 39, 58, 108, 167, 1 9, 

232 
Aegean Sea, 14, 106, 112 
Aegospotami, 26 
Aeschylus, 21 
Aetius, 127, 128 
Afghanistan, 37 
Africa, 61, 64, 117, 126, 132, 

138, 361 
Age of Antonines, 93; of 

Tericles, 19 
Age^^ilaus, 27 
Agincourt, 217, 218, 214 
Aistulf, 145 
Alamanni, 106, 139 
Alaric, 119, 122-124 
Albertus Magnus, 235 
Albigensian Heresy, 193 
A lei blades, 26 
Alcuin, 152 
Alesia, 71 

Alexander, 33, 35, 37, 39 
Alexandria, 37, 81 
Alpheus, R.. 119 
Alps, 64, 67, 162, 239, 2!2, 

327, 330 
Alva, Duke of, 262, 263 
America, 230, 205, 306, 317, 

341, 360 
Anagni, 207 
Anglo-Saxons, 138 
Anjou, 212, 271, 272 
Antioch, 197 
Antiochus, 57, 59 
Anti-pope, 171, 178 
Antoninus Pius, 93 
Antony, 79, 80, 81 
Apennines, 54 
Apollo, 4 
Aquae Sextiae, 67 
Aquileia, 127 
Aquinas, Thomas, 235 
Aquitaine, 142, 148, 189, 

218 
Arabs, 196 



Aragon, 182, 230 

Arbela, 37 

Areopagus, 18 

Argonne, 321 

Argos, 7, 12 

Arian, 126, 130, 132, 133, 
138 

Aristophanes, 21 

Aristotle, 28, 33, 235 

Armada, 166 

Armagnac, 216, 217 

Arnold of Brescia, 177, 203, 

Artois, 220 

Ataulfus, 126 

Athanasius, 117 

Athene, 4, 20 

Athenian democracy, 18 

Athens, 8 ; constitution of, 18 ; 
art in, 20, 21, 22 

Atlantic, 85, 266 

Attila, 127, 128, 135 

Asia, 157, 237^ 360 

Asia Minor, 57 ; Greek cities 
in, 12 ; Spartans in, 27 ; 
Alexander in, 35; Rome 
interferes in, CO ; seized by 
Mithridates, 69; Turks iu, 
196, 226 

Aufidus, 55 

Augsburg, 160, 173, 252, 275 

Augustine, 126, 248 

Austerlitz, 334 

Australia, 360 

Austrasia, 140 

Austria, House of, 220 ; Anne 
of, 288 ; Protestantism ex- 
pelled, 276 ; gains of, 300, 
338 ; Jf'siiits expelled from, 
311 ; advances on I'aris, 321 ; 
in Italy, 327, 343 ; joins 
coalition, 328, 335; domi- 
nant, 310 ; collapse of, 353 

Auiun, 142 

Avars, 148, 150, 160 

Avignon, 207, 208, 222 

Axius, 11., 29 

Azov, 303 



Babylon, 37 

Babylonish captivity, 207, 222 

Baden, 334 

Baldwin of FUnders, 199 



Balkan peninsula, 196, 353 
Baltic, 120, 127, 228, 30.{ 
Barbarossa, Frederic, 172, 176, 

178, 179, 180, 181, 198 
Basel Council, 225, 226 
Hastille, 318 
Bavaria, 143, 159, 280, 29<?, 

299, 338, 35 1; Maximilian 

of, 276 
Bavarians, 141 
i'.aylen, 335 
Bayonne, 215 
Bazaine, 354 
Becket, Thomas a, 206 
Hedriacum, 90 
Belgium, 310, 325, 327, 341 
Belisarius, 131, 132, 133 
Benedict, St., 13:), 163 
Benedictines, 163, 202 
Beneventn, I6I. 185 
Beneventum, 48, 134 
Berengar, 161 
Birlin, 304, 334 ; congress of, 

358, 359 
Bernard, St., 175, 198, 201, 

20 i 
Bismarck, 348, 352, 353, 354, 

355 
Black Sea, 106, 112, 120, 303, 

349, 356 
Blenheim, 299 
Boccaccio, 2J5 
Boethius, 130 
Bohemia, 223, 224, 225, 277, 

279, 343 
Bologna, 176 
Boniface, St., 142, 145 
Bonn, 155 
Bordeaux, 212 
Bosphorup, li2 
Bossuet, 293 
Bourbon, 341, 3.^)0, 351, 356; 

Cardinal of, 272 ; Duke of, 

244 
Fouvines, 182, 189 
Brandenburg, 2i8, 280, 281, 

282. 297, 303, 304 
Breitenfeld, 280 
Bretigny, treaty of, 214, 215 
Brill, 263 

Britain, 'iO, 100, 105, 138 
Bulgaria, 358, 359 
Burgundi^ms, 130, 138, 139, 

216, 217. 218 



3^4 



Biirprundy, Duke of, 215, 216, 
217 ; Charles of, 219, 22U, 
229 ; Philip of, 218 

Buscnto, 124 

Byzantium, 112 



Caesar, Julius, 70, 75, 77, 7S, 

79 
Calais, 214, 215 
Calvin, 255, 256 
Calvinism, 253, 255, 256, 263, 

268, 271, 276 
Cambunian, M., 29 
Campania, 48 
Canada, S07, 308, 310, 360 
Cannae, 55 
Canning, 311 

Cunossa, 169,170, 172,179 
Cape of Good Hope, 237 
Capet, Hugh, 186 
Capetian Dynasty, 180 
Capitularies, 152 
Capua, 55 
Carcassonne, 142 
Carloman, 145, 146 
Carnot, 324 
Carolingian, 141, 145, 156, 

159, 291 
Carthage, 37, 61-56, 60-126, 

Carthusian Order, 202, 253 

Caspian, 37 

Cassiodorus, 130 

Castile, 230 

Castillou, 218 

Castle of St. Angelo, 170 

Catherine of France, 217 

Catherine de Medici, 268, 269, 

270. 271, 272 
Catherine of Russia, 303 
Catholic V. Ariau. 120, 133, 

139, 194 ; V. Protettant, 247- 

252, 260, 267, 270 27J, 276, 

285, 296 
Catiline, 74 
Cato, 60 

Cavour, 350. 351 
Chaeroneia, 3 
Chalons, 127 
Charles Martel, 141, 153, 156, 

185 
Charlemagne, Charles the 

Great, 146-153. 146, 157, 

161, 185, 186, 229, 235 
Charles V. of France, 215, 

216 
Charles VI., 216, 217 
Charles VII., 217, 219 
Charles VIII., 239, 240, 242 
Charles IX., 268, 270, 271, 
Charles X., 342, 347 
Charles IV., Emperor, 228 
Charles v., 220, 213-247, 252, 

25;>, 260, 261, 267, 297 
Charles VI., 30 4 
Charles of Anjou, 185 
Charles Albert of Sardinia, 

343 
Charles II. of Spain, 294 



Index 



Charles XII. of Sweden, ?.03 

Chatham, Earl of, 307, 308 

Chatillon, 269 

Childeric III., 145 

China, 238, 340, 361 

Chlodovech, 139, 145 

Christian of Denmark, 278 

Chrysoloras, 235 

Church, rise of, 83, 95, lOO, 
103, 109, 113, 114; disputes 
in, 117; triumphs of, 119, 
138, 142, 143, 2J9, 224 

Cicero, 74 

Cilician Gates, 35 

Cimbrians, 67 

Cistercian Order, 175, 202 

Civitate, 166, 167 

Clericis Laicos, '^06 

Clotilda, 139 

Clovis. 139, 145 

Clugny, 165 

Cluniac Order, 163. 202, 258 

Codex Justinianus, 131 

Code Napoleon, 330 

Colbert, 292, 295, 296 

Coligny, 268-271 

Cologne, 138, 155, 173, 228 

Coloniae, 50 

Colonna, 207 

Columbus, 237 

Comites, 151 

Comitia, 43, 44 

Committee of Public Safety, 
322, 324, 325 

Company of French East In- 
dies, 193 ; West Indies, 193 

Comte, 343 

Concordat, l7l, 172, 330; of 
Bologna, 243 

Conde, Due de, 260 

Conde, Prince de, 281, 2S9, 290, 
293, 296 

Condottieri, 231 

Confederation of Rhine, 332, 
334 

Conrad I., 159 

Conrad II., 163 

Conrad III. (Hohenstaufen), 
172 

Conrad IV., 18 1 

Conraddino, 185 

Constance, 180, 182; city of, 
225 

Constantinople, 112, 113, 127, 
129, 144, 157, 196, 358; La- 
tin Empire of, 199, 206, 207 ; 
fall of, 226, 235 
Constituent Assembly, 319 
Constitution of Year ill., 325 
Consubs;tantiation, 254, 256 
Consul, First, 330 
Consuls, 41 

Convention, 321, 325, 326 
Copernicus, 238 
Corinth, 4, 7, 16, 32, 57, 60 
Corsica, 56, 61, 133, 326 
Cortes, 210 
Corvee, 317 

Council of Blood, 262, 263 ; of 
Constance, 223, 224, 225, 
259, of Five Hundred, 18 



Counts, 151; Palatine, iCO, 

228 
Courtrai, 205 
Cras.sus, 71, 74, 75 
Crecy, 121, 205, 214, 215, 217 
Cremona, £0 
Crimea, 70, 106, 352 
Cromwell, 290, 326; 
Crusades. 183, 18d, 1£3, 194, 

197, 198-209 
Cynoscephalae, 59 
Cyprian, 126 
Cyprus, 14 
Cyrus, 12 
Czechs, 348 



Dacia, 95, 96 
Danish, 162 
Dante, 207, 234, 235 
Danton, 321, 322, 3J3 
Danube, 85, 95, 96, 99, 103. 
11-.', 121, 12",160,2«0,330,338 
Darius, 12 35 
Day of Barricades, 272 
Deremvfrs, 46 
Decurions, 94 
De Jure Belli et Paci=>, 283 
Delphic Oracle, 7, 9, 31 
Demos, 18 

Demosthenes, 32, 33 
Denmark, 1 82, 353 
Descartes, 292 
Dcslderius, 150 
Diderot, 312 
Didier, 150 
Diet, 2;0 

Dionysius, theatre of, 21 
Directory, 325, 3^7, 328 
Dniester, R., 121 
Doge, 233 

Dominicans, 203, 258 
Donation of Constantine, 153 
Dorians, 25 

Dubarry, Madame, 310 
Du Guesclin, 215, 219 
Dumouriez, 321 
Dutch, 263, 264, 265, 322, 312 
Duumvirs, 94 



Eastern Church, 157, 226 

Ecclesia, 18 

Edessa, 106 

Edict of Nantes, 274, 276 ; of 

Restitution, 278. 295 
Edward I., 206 
Edward HI., 212, 214, 215, 

217 
Egypt, 14, 37, 57, 77, 80, 85, 

105, 112, 136, 200, 328 
Elagabalus, 103 
Elba, 337 

Elbe, 85, 148, 150, 303, 3.?4 
Eleanor of Aquitaine, 189, 212 
Elector Palatine, 277 
Elizabeth of England, 254, 265, 

273 
Elizabeth of France, 24 
Emesa, 103 



Index 



365 



Emperors of Rome — 

Alexander Sever us, 103 

Antoninus Pius, 93 

Arcadius, 123 

Augustus, 108, 110, 112 

Aurelian, 106 

Caligula, 88 

Caracalla, 102 

Claudius, 88, 106 

Commodus, 98, 100, 113 

Constantine, 110-113 

Constantius, 110, 116 

Decius, 106, 109 

Diocletian, 107, 108, 109, 
112, 119, 247 

Domitian, 91, 109 

Galba, 89 

Galerius, 110 

Gratian, 121 

Hadrian, 93, 94, 95 

Heraclius, 137 

Honorius, 123 

Julian the Apostate, 116, 
117 

Justinian, 131 

Leo the Isaurian, 141 

Marcus A.ureliu8, 93, 97, 
100, 109 

Nerva, 93 

Otho, 80 

Pertinax, 100 

Romulus Augustulu^, 128 

Septimus Severus, 101, 102 

Theodosius, 118, 122, 123, 
128 

Tiberius, 87 

Titus, 91 

Trajan, 94, 95 

Valens, 128 

Valentinian, 128 

Valerian, 106 

Vespasian, 90 

Vitelliua, 90 
Empire, Eastern, 131, 138, 143, 

157, 160, 162, 196 ; Western, 

151, 159, 161 ; Holy Roman, 

181, 186, 227, 243, 251, 294, 

297 
Ems, 148 
England, 162, 206, 212, 218, 

239, 242, 243, 259, 265, 297, 
' 300, 306, 307, 303 
Enkhuisen, 263 
Kpaminondas, 27, 28 
Eplrus, 48 
Erasmus. 257 
Ergastula, 64 
P^truria, 41 
Etruscan, 43, 47 
Eucharist, 254, 259 
Eugene, Prince, 298 
Euphrates, 96, 112, 118 
Euripides, 21 
Exarchate of Ravenna, 135 



Ferdinand of Aragon, 230 
Ferdinand, Emperor, 247, 252 
Ferdinand II., Emperor, 276, 

277, 279 
Ferrara, Council of, 226. 230 



Festival of Union, 226 
Feudalism, 188, 214, 314 

Finland, 338 

Flaminian Way, 134 

Flamininus, 58, 59 

Flanders, 204, 205 

P'leury, Cardinal, 319 

Florence, 231-235, 239, 241, 
245, 246 

Fonteuoy, 308 

Fourier, 342 

France, 159, 186-193, 204-209, 
211-220, 233-247, 267-275, 
281-290, 291-300, 309-325, 
325-337, 338, 348, 356 

Fraoche Comte, 294 

Francis of Assisi. 203 

Franciscans, 203, 258 

Francis 1. of France, 242-247 

Francis H. of France, 252, 267, 
268 

Frankish Monarchy, 134, 138, 
143 

Franks, 106, 113, 130, 139, 145, 
146, 153 

Franks, Ripuarian, 138 

Franks, Salian, 138, 139 

Frederick II., Emperor, 181- 
185, 191, 199 

Frederick William I. of Prus- 
sia, 334 

Frederick If. the Great, 304, 
306, 307, 308, 313 

Frederick William IV. 344, 
348 

Friars, 202, 203 

Friedland, 334 

Fronde, 288, 289, 290, 296 



Gabelle, 315, 316 

Galileo, 238 

Garibaldi, 345, 350, 351 

Garonne, K., 139, 14 2 

Gaul, 54, 67, 70, 105, 126, 127, 

131, 138 
Gauls, 41, 43, £4, 71 
General Assembly, 18 
Geneva, 255, 256. 257, 327, 328 
Genoa, 177, 231, 327 
Genseric, 126, 127, 135 
George III., 308 
German Ocean, 154 
Germans, 70, 99 
Germany, 85, 146, 159-164, 

172-176, 181, 183, 228, 244, 

249-260, 267, 268, 275-283, 

332, 334, 337, 338, 340, 346, 

352-356 
Ghibellines, 184, 231, 233 
Gibraltar, 138, 142, 154, 299, 

300 
Girondists, 320, 322 
Godfrey de Bouillon, 197 
Golden Bull, 228 
Goths, 99, 106. 112, 116, 120- 

122, 127, 132, 138 
Gracchus, Caius, 64 
Gracchus, Tiberius, 64 
Granada, 230 ; treaty of, 240 
Graud Alliance, 297, 298 



Great Britain, 320, 328, 331, 

333-337, 349, 359 
Great Elector, 303 
Greece, 21, 22, 210, 231, 235, 

341 
Greeks, 3-39, 48, 112, 175, 199, 

209, 226 
Grotius, 283 
Guelfs, 184, 231, 233 
Guise, Francis of, 270; Henry 

of, 270, 272 
Guizot, 344 
Gunpowder, 218 
Gustavus AdoJphus, 279, 280, 

2S1, 303 



Iladrianople, 121, 122, 205 
Hague, Peace Conference at, 

357, 361 
Haliacmon, 29 
Hamilcar Barca, 52, 53 
Hannibal, 53, 54 
Hanover, 353 
Hanoverians, 307 
Hapsburg, 227, 2-13, 282 
Harding, Stephen, 175 
Hasdrubal, 53, 56, 60 
Hegira, 137 
Helen, 4 
Hellas, 4 
Helvetii, 70 
Henry the Fowler, Emperor. 

159 
Henry II., Emperor, 160, 163 . 
Henry III., Emperor, 163 
Henry IV., Emperor, 163, 168, 

169, 172 
Henry V., Emperor, 171, 172 
Henry VI., 180 
Henry II. of England, 206, 

212, 214 
Henry III. of England, 189, 

191 
Henry IV. of England, 216 
Henry V. of England, 216, 

217 
Henry VIII. of England, 183, 

205, 208, 243, 244, 267 
Henry II. of France, 247, 263 
Henry II. of France, 26;?, 271, 

272, 273 
Hera, 4 
Herodotus, 23 
Hildebrand, 172, 185, 226 
Hippias, 10 

Hohenstaufen, 172, 185, 226 
Holland, 256-260, 267, 291- 

297, 305-310, 32U, 325 
Holy Alliance, 340 
Holy Sepulchre, 194, 202 
Homer, 3, 33, 118 
Horace, 86 
Hudson's Bay, 300 
Huguenots, 268, 270-274, 286, 

296 
Humanists, 257 
Hungary, 148, 160, 278, 343, 

346, 318 
Huns, 120, 127 
Huss, 223, 224. 249 



;66 



Index 



Hussites. 225 
Hypbasis, R., 37 



Iconoclastir, 144 

Ignatius Loj'ola, 253 

Illyria, 76, 338 

Ulyricum, 60, 123 

India, 238, 306-3 LO, 340 

Innsbruck, 252 

Inquisition, 204, 260, 276 

Institutes, Calvin's, 256 

Intendants, 236 

Investiture, 168, 331 

Ireland, 297 

Isabella of Castile, 230 

Islam, 136 

Issus, R., 35 

Italy, 41, 123-132, 134-138, 
145, ]J6, 154, 166-175, 178- 
185, 235, 237, 239-249, 327- 
330, 343-352 

Ivry, 273 



Jacobins, 320-323 

James II.. 296, 297 

JansenistH, 31 1 

Japan, 340, 361 

Jerusalem, 90, 138, 194, 196- 

199 
Jesuits, 258, 276, 311, 314 
Joanna the Mad, 220, 243 
Joan of Arc, 218 
John of England, 182 
John of France, 215 



Kaaba, 136 

Kepler, 238 

Knights of St. John, 198, 208 

Knights of the Temple, 198, 



Kosfuth, 343, 346 



Lancastrians, 216 

Latins, 41 

Latin Empire, 199 

Latin Vulgate, 948 

League, Achaean, 58, 60 : 
Aetolian, 57, 59 ; of Cambrai, 
241 ; of Cities, 184; l)e- 
lian, 14 ; Hanseatic, 228 ; 
Holy, First, 242; Holy, 
Second, 245 ; Holy, Third, 
272, 273; i>atin, 47; Pan- 
Hellenic, 14 ; Spartan, 14 

Legion of Honour, 331 

L^gislative Assembly, 321 

Lptiuano, 179 

Leipsic, 280, 335, 337 

Leopold ot Austria, 228 

Lepidus, 79, 80 

Lewis, 155,156 

Lewis the Pious, 154 

Leyden, 265 

L'Hupital, Chancellor, 271, 273 

Licinioi Law, 47 

Licinius, 110 

Lilybaeuiii, 51, 62 



Lionne, 203 

Lisbon, 335 

Loire, 142, 188, 217 

Lombards, 133, 144-145, 150, 

158, 178 
Lombardy, 327, 350 
Lorraine, 159, 247, 309. 310, 

354 
Lothair, 155, 156, 160 
Lothair, Emperor, 172 
Lotharingia, 156, 220 
Louis VIL, 189 
Louis 1X„ 185, 191, 193, 200 
Louis XL, 183, 219, 220, 239 
Louis XII., 240, 242 
Louis Xlll., 286. 287 
Louis XIV., 267, 2»8, 291-300, 

309, 310 
Louis XV., 309-311, 316 
Louis XVL, 316, 317, 321 
Louis XVilL, 337, 342 
Louis Philippe, 342, 344 
Louvois, 293 
Liibeck, 228 
Luther, 248-256 
Lutheranism, 250-256, 268 
Ltitzen, 280 
Lyons, 207 
Lysander, 26 



Macchiavelli, 269 
Macedonia, 12, 26, 29, 30, 33, 

57, 231 
Madrid, 245, 299 
Maestricht, 155 
Magdeburg, 278, 304 
]\Iagenta, 350 
]\Iagna Carta, 219 
Magnesia, 59 
aiagyars, 160 
Mahomet. 136, 137 
Mahomedan, 136, 142, 148, 

157, 167, 194, 193-202, 226, 

358 
Mahomedanism, 134, 137, 144, 

208, 228 
Maintenon, Madame de, 295, 

296 
Mainz, 222 
Malta, 328, 331 
Manfred, 185 
Mansourah, 2( 
Mantinaea, 28 
Mantua, 327 
Marat, 321 
Marathon, 12 
Marco Polo, 237 
Mardonius, 13 
Maria Theresa of France, 291, 

295 
Maria Theresa of Austria, 306, 

322 
Marie Antoinette, 316, 322 
Marignano, 242 
Marius, 67, 72, 73 
Marlborough, 299, 
Mary of Burgundy, 220, 260 
Mary of England, 247 
Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 

270, 272 



Matilda of Tuscany, 160, 170 
Maurice of Orange, 266 
Maximilian, 220, 243, 260 
Mayors of the Palace, 140 
Mazarin, 281, 289-292 
:\lazzini, 345, 350 
Mecca, 136, 137 
Medici (Cosimo de'), 233 ; 

(Lorenzo de'), 233 
Mediterranean, 33, 40, 154, 

193, 233, 233 
Megara, 32 
Menelaus, 4 
Merovingians, 140, 156 
Mesopotamia, 39 
Metternich, 310, 341, 343 
Metz, 247, 282, 354 
Mexico, 261,352 
Michael Palaeologus, 199 
Milan, 127, 177-231, 239-244, 

246, 300, 343 
Military Orders, 198, 202, 208 
Mirabeau, 318 
Missi Domirnci, 151 
Mitbraism, 103, 107, 1C9, 118 
Mithridates, 69 
Modena, 350 
Moliere, 392 
Moltke, 352, 355 
Monastic Orders, 135, 200 
Mons, 136 
Montaigne, 257 
Montenegro, 336 
Montesquieu, 312 
Moors, 142. 229 
IMoreau. 3M 
Morgarten, 228 
Moscow, 335, 337 
Moselle, 140 
Mount Taurus, 35 
Miihlberg, 252 



Naples, 175,182-185,231,230- 

211, 300, 311, 338, 341, 343, 

351 
Napoleon, 325-337, 338-343 
Napoleon, Louis, i 45-254 
Narses, 132, 133 
Narwa, 303 

National Assembly, 318, 319 
Navarre, Henry of, 269, 271,' 

273, 274, 275 
Necker, 317, 
Nelson, 328 
Netherlands, 247, 260, 26!, 

265, 272-274, 282, 2U4, 297, 

299, 300, 307, 338 
Neustria, 110 
Newfoundland, 300 
New World, 237, 233, 217 
New Zealand, 300 
Nice, 351, 352 
Nile, Battle of the, 328 
Ninies, 142 
Nogaret, 207 
Nordlingen, 281 
Normans, 163, 166, 160, 170, 

175, 179, 186, 197, 212, 217 
Northmen. 154, IS6 
Norway, 333 



Index 



3<^7 



Notre Dame, 331 
Numidia, 66 
Nurnberg, 173 



Oder, R., 303 

Odessa, 197 

Odo, Count of Paris, 186 

Odoacer, 128, 129 

Olympian games, 6, 119 

Omar, 138 

Orestes, 128 

Orleans, 216, 218, 255 ; Duke 

of, 309; House of, 3J2 
Ostrogoths, 126, 132, 133, 139 
Otto the Great, 160-163 
Otto 11., 163 
Otto 111., 163 
Olto IV., 182 



Palmyra, 105, 106 

Pan-Hellenic games, 6, 119 

Palatinate, 277 

Pannonia, 100 

Papacy, 134, 136, 142-145, 151, 
15^ 161-185. 194, 197, 204, 
206, 222, 225, 235, 241, 248- 
251, 259, 352 

Paris of Troy, 4 

Pans, 186, 189, 192, 208, 272- 
274,304,317-331,354; Par- 
lemeut of, 209, 216, 288, 310 

Parliament, 210, 219 

Parma, 311, 350 

Parma, Duke of, 273 

Parthenon, 20 

Parthians, 76, 95, 99 

Partisans, 293 

Pascal, 293 

Patricians, 4 5 

Paul of Russia, 328 

Pausanias, 14 

Pavia, 67, 150, 161,244, 245 

I'eace of Aix-la-Chapelle, 307 ; 
of Amiens, 330, 351 ; of 
Arras, 218 ; of Augsburg, 
25 ;-254, 276, 278 ; of Cam- 
brai. 246 ; of Campo Formio, 
327,330, 331 ; of Cateau Cam- 
bresis, 247 ; of Huberts- 
burg, SOi ; of Liibeck, 
278; of Luneville, 33); 
of Nimwegen, 291 ; of 
Paris, 308 ; of Presburg, 
334 ; of Ryswick, 297 ; of 
S. Germain, 270 ; of Tilsit, 
334, 337, 338 : of Utrecht, 
297, 30O; of Vervins, 274; 
of Westphalia, 282, 289, 295 

Peisistratus, 8 

Peloponnesian "War, 25 

Pergamus, 60 

Pericles, 19, 25 

Persepolis. 37 

Perseus of Macedonia, 60, 61 

Persia, 10, Z6, 33, 35, 106, 112, 
116, 131, 138 

Peru, 261 

Peter the Great. 302-304 

Petei the Hermit. 197 



Phalanx, 35, 59, 60 

Pharsalia, 77 

Phidias, 2^ 

Philip of Maredonia, 33-33 

Philip 1. of France, 188 

Philip II. Augustus, 182, 189, 

198 
Philip III. of France, 193 
P-hilip IV". of France, 204, 206 
Philip "VI. of France, 212 
Philip II. of Spain, 247, 260, 

265, 272, 274, 297 
Philip IV, of Spain, 293 
Philip V. of Spain, 300 
Phocis, 31 
Phrygia, 35 
Picardy, 220, 255 
Piedmont, 67, 230, 343, 350 
Pisa, 177, 223, 231, 
Pilt, Earl of Chatham, 308 
Plataea, 14 
Plato, 2» 
Plebeians, 45 
Pnyx, 18, 

Po, R., 48, 53, 54, 134, 350 
Poitiers, 121, 142, 205, 214, 

215. 217 
Poland, 276, 301, 324, 338, 352 
Politiques, 271, 272 
Pomerania, 304 
Pompadour, Madame de, 310 
Pompey, 70, 74-77 
Pontus, 69 
Popes- 
Adrian IV.. 178 

Alexander III., 178, 179 

Boniface VIII., 206-209 

Clement V., 207 

Clement VII., 223, 245 

Gregory the Great, 136 142 

Gregory VII., 165, 168-172, 
181, 194. 196, 209, 225 

Gregory IX., 199 

Gregory XI., 233 

Hadrian, 150 

Innocent III., 181, 193, 19-t, 
203, 209, 225, 248 

John XII., 161 

John XXII., 223, 224 

Julius II., 241, 242 

Leo, 128 

Leo III., 144, 151 

Leo IX., 165 

Martin V., 224 

Nicholas "V., 238 

Pascal, 171 

Paul III., 258 

Urban IV., 185 

Urban "VI., 223 
Port Arthur, 361 
Portugal, 182, 237, 311, 328 
Poseidon, 4 

Praetorian Guards, 89, 90, 100 
Prague, 276 
Predestination, 256 
Printing-press, 237 
Protestant, 237, 246, 251-261, 

269-276,27 7-281, 296 
Protestantism, 252-260, 268- 

275, 285, 286, 27G-283 
Proven9als, ly7 



Provincial estates, 310 
PiUt-sia, rise of, 301-308,; v. 

Napoleon, 324, 332-346 ; v. 

FraLce, 351-356 
Ptolemies, 57 
Pultawa, 305 
Punjab, 37 
Puritan, 283, 288 
Pydna, 60 

Pyrenees, 54, 70, 133, 142 
Pyrrhus, <8 



Rabelais, 257 
Racine, 292 
Ratisbon, Diet of, 279 
Ravenna, 123, 124. 127, 129- 

134 
Reformation, 244, 248-260, 

27(1, 276, 282 
Reform Rill, 342 
Reign of Terror, £22-325 
Henaissance, 234 
Republican Calendar, 322 
Republic, Cis-Alpiue, 327 ; 

Dutch, 260; first French, 

321, 324, 327; second 

French, 345, 347; third 

French, 355 ; Helvetic, 327 ; 

Ligurian, 327 ; Partheno- 

paean, 327 
Revolution, French ; 310-320, 

325, 326, 33 i, 334; of Bru- 

maire, 328, 347 
Rhine, R., 70, S5, 99, 127, 138, 

HO, 156. 220, 255, 263, 230, 

303, 325 
Rhodes, 60, 208 
Rhone, R., 67, 138, 193, 220 
Richard Coeur de Lion, 189. 

198 
Richard II., 216 
Richelieu, 281, 284-288, -.91, 

292, 296 
Robert Guiscard, 166, 167, 170 
Robespierre, 321-325 
Rodolph of Hapsburg, 226 
Roger of Sicily, 175 
Romagna, 350 
Roman soldiers, 50, 68 
Rome, 40, 41, 44, 48, 64, 68, 

8i-83 112, 124, 128, 163, 

170-178, 201, 222, 235, 239, 

246, 2-^9,343, 345, 351 
Rome, W. Empire lost, 133, 

150 
Romulus, Augustulus, 128 
Rosbach, 228, 310 
Roumania, 358 
Roumelia, 358 
Rousseau, 312, 316, 323 
Russia, 106, 301-308, 324, 328, 

331-334, 337. 349, 3j8 



Sabines, 41 
Sacred Mount, 45 
Sadowa, 353 
Saguntum, 53 
Saint Helena, 337 
Saint Marks, 179 



;68 



Index 



Saint Petersburg, 302, 303 

Saint Simon, 3'12 

Saiadin, 198 

Salamis, 13 

Salerno, 171, 183 

Samnites, 41, 48 

Sapor, 100 

Saracens, 148, 150, 160, 175 

Sardinia, 133, 350, 351, 352; 

King of, 343, 349 
Sarissa, H5 
Sassaaids, 99,106 
Savoy, 300, 311, 350-353 
Saxons, 141, 143, 14S, 160, 166, 

169, 171 
Saxony, 159, 173, 252, 280, 307, 
33+ ; Elector of, 277 ; Mau- 
rice of, 228 ; Henry the Liou 
of, 173 
Schism, Great, 223 
Schleswig-Holstein, 353 
Schwytz, 228 

Scipio the Great, 55, 56, 59 
Scipio, Minor, 60 
Scotland, 256, 263 
Sebastopol, 349 
Sedan, 354 
Seleucidae, 43 
Sempach, 229 
Senate, 43 

Serfdom abolished, 333 
Serfs, 210 
Servia, 358 
Sicilies, Two, 180-183, 191, 

234, 350 
Sicily, 25, 53, 56, 61, 132, 166, 

167, 175 
Siey^s, 318 

Sigismund, Emperor, 224, 225 
Silesia, 306-308 
Slaves, 210; revolt, 74 
Slavs, 150 
Sobieslci, John, 301 
Socialism, 342, 359 
Socrates, 23 
Solferino, 351 
Sulon, 8 

Spain, 53-6], 67, 105, 126, 131, 
138, 148. 220, 230-247, 239, 
260, 262-267, 270, 297-301, 
335 
Sparta, 4, 7, 13, 25-27, 32, 57 
Spoleto, 134 
States General, 207, 210, 269, 

286, 288, 310, 318 
Steam-engine, 338 
Stein, 333 
Stilicbo, 123, 124 
Stoics, 97 

Stralsund, 22>^, 278, 279 
Strasburg, 294 
Study of Komau Law, 173, 

189, 201,209 
Suevi, 70 
Sulla, 67, 72, 73 
Sully, 275 
Susa, 37 



Swabia, 159 

Sweden, 182, 278, 294, 300, 

338 
Swiss, 222 
Switzerland, 156, 228, 256, 279, 

282, 327 
Syagrius, 39 
Syracuse, 26, 52, 55, 100 
Syria, 35, 39, 57, 70, 85, 103- 

106, 136, 138, 196, 197 



Taginae, 132, 133 

Tagliacozzo, 185 

Taille, 219, 314, 315 

Tarentum, 55 

Tarik, 138 

Tartar, 120, 127 

Tempe, 29 

Tertullian, 126 

Tetzel, 248, 249 

Teutons, 57 

Thebes, 7, 12, 27, 31, 57 

Themistocles, 31 

Theodoric, 127-132 

Thermopylae, 31 

Thessaly, 29 

Thor, 106, 120 

Thrace, 12, 39, 122 

Thucydides, 23 

Tiber, 41. 112, 128 

Tilly, 280 

Tirolese, 335 

Tonkin, 361 

Tories, 299 

Totila, 13 i 

Toul, 247, 282 

Toulon, 326 

Toulouse, 193, 203 

Tours, 142 

Trafalgar, 333, 334 

Transubstantiatiou, 254, 256 

Trasimene, 54 

Treaty of Troyes, 21 7 

Trent, Council of, z59 

Treves, 173, 228 

Tripolis, 197 

Triumvirates, 76, 79 

Trojans. 4 

Truce of Nice, 246 

Tuileries, 319, 321 

Turenne. 281, 289, 293, 297 

Turgot, 317 

Turkey, 246, 328. 341, 346 

Turks, 196, 301, 349, 358 

Tuscany, 134, 166, 109, 176, 

343, 350 
Twelve Tables, 46 



Ulfilas. 120 

Ulm, 334 

Ulysses, 334 

Union of Utrecht, 265-267 

United Provinces, 294 



Va'my, 321 

Vandals, 123, 126-132, 133 

Vasco da Gama, 237 

Vauban, 293 

Veil, 4 7 

Venice, 131, 177, 198, 231, 235, 

238, 241, 257, 327, 350 
Vercingetorix, 71 
Verdun, 186, 217, 282 ; treaty 

of, 220 
Verona, 127 
Versailles, 319, 354 
Victor Emmanuel, 350 
Vienna, 20>!, 280, 299, 301, 330, 

334, 344 ; Congress of, 337, 

338 ; Treaty of, 335 
Visigoths, 122-126, 130, 133, 

138 
Voitaire, 304, 312, 316 



Wallenstein, 278-281, 321 
AVar, of Austrian Succession, 
306, 307. 310 ; Crimean, 3 19. 
358; Franco-German, 353, 
356 ; of the Grand Alliance, 
297; Hundred Years', 210, 
212 ; Napoleonic, 301 ; Pelo- 
ponnesian, 25, 26 ; of tne 
Polish Successiou, 309 ; 
Punic, 52 ; of the Roses, 
218 ; Rusao-Turkish, 357 ; 
Seven Years', 3ii7, 308, 310 ; 
Thirty Years', 270, 276, 281, 
287-300 
Water-beggars, 263 
Waterloo, 320, 335, 337 
AVestern Church, 157, 158, 226 
Westphalia, 334 
Whigs, 299 
Wickliffe, 249 
AVidukind, 148 
William the Conqueror, 166, 

168 
William 1., Emperor, 352-355 
AVilliam It., Emperor, 355 
William of Orange, 294, 297, 

William the Silent, 262 273 
AVillibrord, 142 
AVittenberg, 248, 249 
AVoden, 106, 120 
AVorms, Diet of, 249 
AViirtemberg, 334, 354 



Xerxes, 12, 13 



York, 102, 110, 153 
Yorkists, 216 



Zama, 56, 61 
Zara, 198 
Zeus, 6, 6, 37 
Zoliverein, 314 



PH1^TK1> m WH-LIAil CLUVVKS AND SONS, L1M1TE1>, LUM>UN AND BKOCX-E». 



II 



